How to make biochar and increase soil fertility.

How to make biochar and increase soil fertility. For hundreds of years, rain forest farmers have figured out that you can enrich soil with biochar: charcoal, basically. Wet vegetation is burned, producing little bits of charcoal, which are ground into the soil. Eventually, this creates an incredibly rich,fertile soil. In only the past few years, researchers at universities around the world have realized that the Amazonian technique is replicated in various forms around the world, including West Africa. This new study, led by researchers at the University of Sussex, analyzed 177 sites in Liberia and Ghana and proved that biochar additions, practiced for centuries in these areas, have increased the carbon levels in the soil by two to three times. By living in villages in these countries, researchers described the techniques: ash and bones, along with kitchen waste, are recycled back into the soil. The press release for the study says the practice could help mitigate climate change. What they mean by that is that the biochar method transfers carbon to the soil, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. The infamous slash-and-burn method, in which material like trees and plants are simply burned in open fires, transfers a very small percentage of carbon to the soil, releasing much of it into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. But slash-and-char, in which wet vegetation under a layer of straw is burned into charcoal, is much more efficient, transferring almost half of its carbon content into the soil.more