Impact of biochar on soil physical, chemical, and biological properties

Abstract

Restoring or enhancing soil properties on forest, range, mine, or agricultural soils is becoming increasingly important. In particular, threats to soil from drought, intense rain, flooding, heat, and wildfire can reduce the productive capacity of the soil and also reduce our ability to grow food and fiber or regulate carbon (C), water, or nutrients (Blanco-Canqui 2021). Creating wood-based biochars from material normally burned in slash piles is an opportunity to increase forest health by decreasing wildfire risk or insect and disease outbreaks (Rodriguez-Franco and Page-Dumroese 2021). Forest restoration efforts to reduce stand stocking is common on public lands, but there is often no end use for limbs, branches, cull sections, or unmerchantable round wood (Anderson et al. 2016). However, biochar made from this ‘waste’ wood is one way to increase woody residue values while also improving forest stand conditions (Bergman et al. 2016), improving soil conditions, and mitigating climate change. Biochar is a high C (25-95% C) substrate and its addition to soil can rapidly increase soil C levels (Blanco-Canqui et al. 2020; Liu et al. 2016) depending on soil type, biochar feedstock, application rates, and conditions under which biochar is created. Further, creation of biochar using mobile pyrolysis units, kilns, or carefully built slash piles (Page-Dumroese et al. 2017) at log landings or on skid trails reduces transportation costs while creating biochar on-site.

Citation

Page-Dumroese, Deborah S.; Tirocke, Joanne M. 2022. Impact of biochar on soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. In: Arango, Rachel A.; Pureswan, Deepa S., eds. 2022. Proceedings of the 7th North American Forest Insect Work Conference; Shaping Forests: Action in a Changing World. FHAAST-2022-01. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Health Assessment and Applied Sciences Team. p. 152-156.