2023 Eastern Nebraska Soil Health Conference - Emerging Topics 1

Deloris Pittman & Mike Kamm Author

03/20/2023 Added

17 Plays

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Emerging topics in soil health 1. Biochar and it’s potential as a soil amendment – Britt Fossum, UNL Graduate Student

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[00:00:05.130]Okay, so our first speaker is Britt Fossum,
[00:00:07.950]and she's an agronomy student,
[00:00:10.190]or a graduate student in the agronomy department,
[00:00:13.230]and she's doing some really interesting research
[00:00:14.940]with cover crops and biochar.
[00:00:16.710]So go ahead, Britt.
[00:00:19.110]Hello, everyone.
[00:00:19.943]So, today I am presenting on biochar
[00:00:24.480]in combination with cover crops
[00:00:25.647]as a new sustainable management strategy.
[00:00:29.490]So I might actually just start by outlining
[00:00:32.040]a little bit of background on sustainable management
[00:00:35.340]and some of the kind of encouraging developments.
[00:00:38.850]So Nebraska is an agricultural state,
[00:00:43.050]more than 20 million acres of cropland in total.
[00:00:46.260]And out of those 20 million acres,
[00:00:48.720]currently more than 50% are using some form
[00:00:51.990]of sustainable management,
[00:00:53.040]whether that's no-till, reduced tillage,
[00:00:56.400]or any kind of variation on that.
[00:00:58.290]And so something that I really like to think about is,
[00:01:00.870]what kinds of new strategies are coming out?
[00:01:03.870]Because clearly there is an interest
[00:01:05.610]in kind of moving towards more sustainable management
[00:01:09.090]and especially looking at soil health.
[00:01:11.880]So, biochar is one of these.
[00:01:14.970]I might do a very quick poll
[00:01:16.860]to see if I can have a reference for that 50%
[00:01:19.020]for how many people are familiar with biochar already?
[00:01:24.210]Okay.
[00:01:25.230]Has anyone used it actually?
[00:01:28.320]Okay, so we'll say maybe less than 1%.
[00:01:34.710]So also in context for sustainable agriculture,
[00:01:37.680]there are really a number of different goals.
[00:01:39.990]So there are equity goals.
[00:01:42.180]There are goals around the economic sustainability
[00:01:44.094]of the overall agricultural sector.
[00:01:46.560]And there are also specifically environmental goals.
[00:01:49.560]And today has been really centered around soil health,
[00:01:51.840]but there are actually a number of other things
[00:01:54.150]that can be addressed such as better management
[00:01:56.400]of water resources, increasing biodiversity,
[00:01:59.190]and improving carbon sequestration.
[00:02:01.410]And so looking in at this,
[00:02:04.170]soil health is just one component
[00:02:06.120]of these sustainable systems.
[00:02:08.190]And a lot of new technologies and methods
[00:02:10.170]can actually target multiple goals at once.
[00:02:13.890]And that's kind of the goal of biochar.
[00:02:16.170]So, this is really where biochar shines.
[00:02:20.280]It is one of the most efficient
[00:02:22.950]carbon sequestration strategies
[00:02:24.540]that we potentially have.
[00:02:26.160]And agriculture does contribute quite a lot
[00:02:28.200]to emissions in the United States alone.
[00:02:31.354]It makes up nearly 10% of overall carbon dioxide
[00:02:35.400]and other equivalent gases annually.
[00:02:39.450]And a part of this is
[00:02:41.100]because of the organic matter in soils.
[00:02:44.310]So over the course of a given year,
[00:02:47.550]essentially during the growing season,
[00:02:49.590]you have plants in your soil
[00:02:50.790]that take up carbon dioxide
[00:02:52.110]from the atmosphere and turn it into their biomass.
[00:02:56.280]That isn't a permanent solution
[00:02:58.110]because then as that plant decomposes,
[00:03:01.140]it begins to release carbon dioxide
[00:03:02.850]back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
[00:03:06.300]Overall, soils can either store carbon or release carbon,
[00:03:11.100]and agriculture and agricultural intensification serves
[00:03:14.640]to kind to speed up that process,
[00:03:17.100]makes it more likely that your soils are going
[00:03:19.110]to emit carbon dioxide instead of storing it.
[00:03:22.410]So any kind of solution that targets this
[00:03:24.660]and tries to kind of reverse that process
[00:03:28.020]could be said to be a carbon sequestration
[00:03:30.180]or storage technology.
[00:03:33.090]So that is kind of what biochar is designed to do.
[00:03:36.630]So, this is just a really complicated diagram
[00:03:40.080]showing the biochar production process.
[00:03:42.450]So, you start with some kind of plant material,
[00:03:46.470]and current projects, especially in Nebraska,
[00:03:49.350]are looking at feedstocks
[00:03:51.180]that could actually be a sustainable source
[00:03:53.940]of material for this process.
[00:03:55.860]In this case, it's an eastern red cedar or wood,
[00:03:58.200]but many other feedstocks can be used.
[00:04:01.500]This is converted through a process called pyrolysis,
[00:04:05.370]which is basically what happens
[00:04:08.790]when you heat up any kind of plant material without oxygen.
[00:04:13.320]And this actually kind of makes it develop more
[00:04:17.010]of the solid material.
[00:04:19.170]Instead of producing a lot of heat and energy,
[00:04:22.890]you're really producing more of this biochar material,
[00:04:25.770]and you can tailor this process in many ways.
[00:04:29.850]Then this material can be used
[00:04:32.070]for a number of different applications.
[00:04:33.570]And the biochar industry is still fairly small,
[00:04:36.090]but one of the largest uses of biochar
[00:04:39.480]is agriculture and related fields.
[00:04:42.930]And so in this case, it has a potential sequestration
[00:04:46.170]of 0.5 to two gigatons carbon dioxide per year
[00:04:49.770]if it's scaled up,
[00:04:50.850]if this becomes a really attractive technology.
[00:04:53.730]So this kind of explains a little bit
[00:04:56.610]about how biochar could be used for carbon sequestration.
[00:05:01.980]This figure on the right is actually
[00:05:03.540]from a larger scale biochar production facility.
[00:05:06.270]And there are the three components
[00:05:08.280]that I think are important for the biochar industry
[00:05:11.190]and biochar adoption as a whole.
[00:05:12.900]One is sourcing that feedstock,
[00:05:14.580]that material that goes into it.
[00:05:16.500]One is developing better production,
[00:05:19.680]so that it can be produced at a scale
[00:05:21.300]where it's usable for large acres of land.
[00:05:24.120]And then finally, finding somewhere to use it.
[00:05:28.800]Like I said, agriculture is currently
[00:05:30.600]one of the areas where it is used,
[00:05:32.310]but it's still a very small industry,
[00:05:35.760]and a lot of different issues need
[00:05:37.470]to be worked out in order to make it something
[00:05:39.480]that is really feasible for more people.
[00:05:44.340]Once you've applied biochar soil,
[00:05:46.170]and this is another kind of complicated diagram,
[00:05:48.150]but it is black carbon, so it is organic material,
[00:05:52.110]but it is very different
[00:05:53.730]than many other organic amendments.
[00:05:55.560]And one of the big differences is that
[00:05:57.150]it is highly resistant to decomposition.
[00:05:59.700]So when you put it in your soil,
[00:06:01.200]it really does stay there for a long period of time,
[00:06:05.070]possibly hundreds to thousands of years.
[00:06:08.100]More study is required to kind of fully track
[00:06:11.880]how it changes over time, but it is highly resistant
[00:06:14.970]to the decomposition and kind of creates
[00:06:17.040]this new architecture in your soil.
[00:06:19.620]So, this image up at the top right
[00:06:22.620]is actually an image of the surface of biochar.
[00:06:24.990]And so you have a material
[00:06:26.220]that really spans a wide range of sizes
[00:06:28.620]from kind of matching soil aggregate size,
[00:06:32.340]but with little pores that can really hold
[00:06:34.590]onto a lot of important components
[00:06:36.480]like soil, nutrients, water,
[00:06:40.200]and this increased porosity
[00:06:42.523]and decreased bulk density,
[00:06:44.220]as well as additional water retention
[00:06:45.930]and nutrient retention could be really important
[00:06:49.500]for soil health properties
[00:06:51.360]beyond just improving the carbon sequestration capacity
[00:06:54.600]or storage of soil.
[00:06:57.540]So, there are a lot of challenges.
[00:07:00.000]One of the most significant is the high cost.
[00:07:03.900]This is partially because it is currently
[00:07:05.850]a very kind of small scale process.
[00:07:09.930]Most biochar is bought and used in a very small area.
[00:07:13.050]It's very local,
[00:07:14.430]and there's difficulty sourcing biochar feedstock
[00:07:17.550]in a consistent way.
[00:07:19.650]That ends up being one of the biggest costs
[00:07:20.916]of producing biochar is finding something consistently
[00:07:24.351]that you can then use to produce it.
[00:07:27.420]And market development and production costs
[00:07:30.300]need to be worked out a little bit more.
[00:07:31.710]And there is not a lot of data on long-term impacts
[00:07:35.640]done on our current agronomic systems.
[00:07:39.870]So this is actually just comparing the cover crops,
[00:07:43.260]no-till biochar that are kind of the three major
[00:07:47.610]or at least the three sustainable management technologies
[00:07:52.680]that we're considering in our research.
[00:07:54.900]So, there are a lot of input costs associated with biochar,
[00:07:58.590]but it is a one-time application.
[00:08:00.990]Once you've done this,
[00:08:02.310]you've basically increased the organic content
[00:08:04.320]of your soil for as long as you'll be using it.
[00:08:09.090]Carbon sequestration, cover crops,
[00:08:11.220]and no-till kind of have low potential in that regard.
[00:08:15.690]But biochar has very high potential, and for soil health,
[00:08:19.410]we need to understand that a little bit better.
[00:08:22.920]So, I am currently involved in a biochar project
[00:08:26.250]at UNL, working with Michael Kaiser,
[00:08:29.940]as well as a number of other researchers.
[00:08:33.270]And we began this project in spring of 2021,
[00:08:36.720]applying biochar at a fairly high rate,
[00:08:38.760]about 28 tons per acre.
[00:08:41.130]For context, I think a lot of recommendations
[00:08:43.050]are closer to 10 tons per acre,
[00:08:46.170]and we're looking at two different field experiments
[00:08:48.720]with different climate and water management.
[00:08:51.180]And we additionally sourced all of this material
[00:08:53.460]from within Nebraska using Eastern Red Cedar
[00:08:56.820]as a potential feedstock source
[00:08:58.830]for a Nebraska based biochar industry
[00:09:01.260]if that ever comes to pass.
[00:09:04.260]Our primary research goals,
[00:09:05.820]so, we are not really looking at crop yield increases.
[00:09:10.500]What we really care about is trying
[00:09:12.180]to assess what benefits biochar has to soil,
[00:09:15.810]if it's improving soil health,
[00:09:17.130]and if it's actually sequestering carbon
[00:09:19.410]the way we think it is.
[00:09:20.370]So we are primarily looking at an increase
[00:09:23.340]in organic carbon, improved nitrate and water retention,
[00:09:27.030]and additionally kind of measuring that biochar over time,
[00:09:31.710]seeing how much of it decomposes, how much we lose,
[00:09:34.560]whether it's due to erosion or any number of things,
[00:09:37.830]and additionally, seeing how it works
[00:09:39.780]in combination with cover crops.
[00:09:45.540]A very brief overview
[00:09:46.740]of kind of some of our results.
[00:09:48.030]So, looking at carbon and more specifically organic matter,
[00:09:52.080]there's really not an impact that we've seen
[00:09:54.210]in cover crops and no-till in biochar.
[00:09:57.120]We've seen maybe one and a half to two times of an increase.
[00:10:01.920]And this is not even looking
[00:10:03.720]at a calculation of how much carbon we've sequestered.
[00:10:07.200]That's kind of a different calculation.
[00:10:09.630]For nitrate, we're really seeing more of an impact
[00:10:11.640]from our irrigation than from anything else.
[00:10:17.070]And then these are just some images
[00:10:18.840]after we applied the biochar.
[00:10:21.900]So at this point, it's almost been one full year.
[00:10:26.700]And then finally, just to go over a few conclusions.
[00:10:30.090]So biochar really is a promising new strategy.
[00:10:34.830]It's one that has a lot of room for growth
[00:10:37.500]is what I will say.
[00:10:38.700]It's still very much in its infancy being developed,
[00:10:42.600]and there are a lot of challenges
[00:10:45.150]associated with adopting biochar.
[00:10:48.540]But I think research in combination
[00:10:51.240]with a lot of new developments, including in Lincoln,
[00:10:54.930]they actually very recently were awarded a grant
[00:10:57.960]for about $400,000 to develop a wood waste recycling program
[00:11:02.310]for producing biochar at a city-wide scale.
[00:11:07.650]So there is a lot of opportunity for development and growth.
[00:11:11.610]And then finally, just for questions
[00:11:13.980]and if you're curious about biochar,
[00:11:15.480]I am here to answer any questions.
[00:11:18.432]Additionally, like I said,
[00:11:20.010]the Lincoln Biochar Initiative
[00:11:22.170]is currently developing their city-wide biochar program,
[00:11:26.220]and there are additional resources available
[00:11:28.830]through the US Biochar Initiative,
[00:11:30.780]as well as international organizations.
[00:11:33.270]So, thank you.
[00:11:38.340]Yeah, I was involved with Britt's project,
[00:11:40.410]and just one thing that we noticed
[00:11:42.600]when we were applying the biochar,
[00:11:44.400]don't do it on a windy day.
[00:11:45.784]That's just all that I would've to say,
[00:11:47.970]but it was awesome,
[00:11:49.380]and it's a noticeable difference
[00:11:51.300]that you see in the plots later.
[00:11:52.800]It looks dark.
[00:11:53.880]So I think we have some questions here.
[00:11:58.459](folks murmur)
[00:11:59.550]And two questions.
[00:12:01.290]Yeah?
[00:12:02.400]One I think you answered.
[00:12:03.450]It's always a powder,
[00:12:05.190]and do trees make a difference?
[00:12:07.260]I mean, I think about all the trees being taken
[00:12:09.450]out across the Nebraska landscape
[00:12:11.250]for farming and a lot of rough crap trees.
[00:12:15.570]Do trees make a difference?
[00:12:17.250]Yeah, so to the first question,
[00:12:20.160]is it always a powder, no.
[00:12:23.160]That is kind of related to the production process.
[00:12:26.790]You can kind of...
[00:12:28.770]There is always gonna be some really small particles
[00:12:30.949]associated with it, but it has a really broad range.
[00:12:33.960]So, again, a lot of it's about how you make it
[00:12:36.900]and what you make it like from.
[00:12:38.484]If you've ground up your material,
[00:12:40.740]if you're using sawdust instead of wood, for example,
[00:12:43.110]that might make a big difference.
[00:12:49.541]For what kind of plant material you're using,
[00:12:51.600]I mean, wood is just nice because,
[00:12:55.680]like you said, there's a lot of waste wood,
[00:12:57.270]and it has the potential to be something
[00:12:59.141]that could be a consistent source of fuel,
[00:13:02.970]but ultimately you can use
[00:13:06.450]like residual corn material.
[00:13:10.170]Switch grass is one I've heard about a lot,
[00:13:11.850]but that's one of the tricky parts
[00:13:14.430]is kind of working out the kinks in the production process.
[00:13:17.910]So hopefully that answered some questions.
[00:13:22.410]I have a couple,
[00:13:23.280]a question and a comment.
[00:13:25.770]I noticed in your presentation,
[00:13:28.117]you incorporated biochar.
[00:13:30.120]Does it have to be incorporated?
[00:13:33.120]And also you haven't done any test on yields.
[00:13:37.950]What I read is that if it's not inoculated,
[00:13:40.380]you're going to have a yield guide to begin with.
[00:13:44.790]So, maybe for the first question,
[00:13:50.730]which was about incorporation, I would say, yes,
[00:13:53.460]you really do need to do a little bit of tillage
[00:13:57.450]to get it into the soil.
[00:13:58.310]It's a really lightweight material,
[00:14:00.510]and you want it to mix with the soil,
[00:14:03.870]so that it can actually interact with other things
[00:14:06.734]in there and kind of better support the soil architecture.
[00:14:11.250]If it's just on top,
[00:14:12.180]it's not doing much besides maybe getting lost.
[00:14:16.860]And then the other question,
[00:14:18.360]was that about crop yield or about biochar yield?
[00:14:23.370]Sorry? Inoculation.
[00:14:25.590]Oh, inoculation, yeah.
[00:14:27.030]So, I'm not currently working on that,
[00:14:29.910]but that is a really interesting way to use biochar.
[00:14:33.960]It is 70% carbon,
[00:14:35.520]and the remaining percent is not much else that's of use.
[00:14:39.870]It really is this like almost architectural component,
[00:14:44.760]but inoculation with pretty much anything you want
[00:14:49.470]or even adding and mixing it with other things
[00:14:53.490]like maybe mixing it with compost
[00:14:55.230]or manure or any other organic additive you want
[00:14:58.740]could be a really good way
[00:14:59.730]to maybe start off using it and try it out.
[00:15:03.370]And it kind of allows you to add both
[00:15:05.970]that carbon matrix, as well as some actual nutrients
[00:15:10.351]that your soil might want.
[00:15:13.920]We said it...
[00:15:15.060]So we're actually comparing.
[00:15:17.070]We're calling it a one-time tillage
[00:15:19.890]because it's a one-time application.
[00:15:22.680]It is kind of something that you just have to deal with.
[00:15:26.430]You're putting it in your soil.
[00:15:27.840]You're going to till that one time,
[00:15:30.480]and then after that,
[00:15:31.710]hopefully you've increased the carbon content
[00:15:34.170]of the soil for the next 100 years,
[00:15:36.240]so you don't need to do it again.
[00:15:37.470]But you're right, I don't think there are
[00:15:40.230]a lot of great strategies for incorporating it
[00:15:42.870]without using any tillage at all,
[00:15:44.580]but you can do it.
[00:15:45.630]Like we only did it up to six inches
[00:15:47.760]with kind of a as non-invasive a method as we could.
[00:15:53.760]Thank you.
[00:15:54.593]So your pyrolysis equipment, is it mobile,
[00:15:56.790]so that you can take it where your feedstock is,
[00:15:59.130]or do you have to bring the feedstock to it?
[00:16:01.320]It can be.
[00:16:02.550]It can be mobile.
[00:16:03.570]So these can be as complicated
[00:16:05.670]as a large industrial process
[00:16:08.607]designed with, you know the most efficient method
[00:16:12.540]and most efficient fuel use,
[00:16:14.070]or it can be a kiln on a trailer.
[00:16:17.670]So this, honestly, the production scale
[00:16:20.550]can vary really widely
[00:16:22.290]and kind of depends on what you wanna use it for.
[00:16:25.080]So you can do kind of a smaller mobile operation
[00:16:28.830]that maybe moves to where you have the feedstock
[00:16:30.870]that you wanna get rid of.

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2023 Eastern Nebraska Soil Health Conference - Emerging Topics 1

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