Is Carbon Fertilizer ??

Gordon Gould · Apr 25, 2015

I took the long ride to my nearest Kabota dealer to get some filters and along the way passed a big cornfield with last years stubble. There was a huge pile of manure ready to be spread and along side it was a similar sized pile of what looked like carbon. The fine granular stuff you get when you clean a chimney. I have never seen this before. Does the carbon have a benefit to the soil or is this just a way to dispose of large quantities of soot ?? Just curious.

smstonypoint · Apr 25, 2015

Biochar is supposedly a useful soil amendment -- Biochar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Steve

DFB · Apr 25, 2015

I just went through a similar situation. When I went get several loads of manure for my garden someone had been disposing of winters worth of woodstove ash cleanout all on top the manure pie...was no problem for me.

Gordon Gould · Apr 25, 2015

Thank smstonypoint. I didn't know that. I new that ashes had potash and other minerals in them but I had no idea that pure carbon was a benefit.

Rustyiron · Apr 25, 2015

Could it be limestone? I've seen (in limestone country) bulk granular ground limestone delivered in stockpiles in the field, except what I've seen is a light gray. A much cheaper alternate to burnt limestone that you might expect see when a heavy manure application is in store.

Billrog · Apr 25, 2015

There is a fella here that has a cooker just for making carbon he sells to enrich soil. I don't know enough about it to make any kind of credible statement.

Fawken · Apr 25, 2015

Pure carbon is not digestible by plants.

vtsnowedin · Apr 25, 2015

I'm betting what you were looking at was a pile of composted sewer plant sludge. Good fertilizer as long as it has been tested and doesn't have heavy metals in it. It is high in carbon which helps to improve soil texture and it's ability to hold onto other nutrients in a form plants can access them.

Gordon Gould · Apr 26, 2015

I wish I had my camera and took a picture. It was the color of asphalt, very granular but fine. Looked like a black sand pile. I know nothing about farming practices so it could be anything but it looked like chimney cleanings to me. I have seen large lime spreaders from Northeast Ag. The ones I recognize as lime spreaders spread white pulverized lime that comes in by rail which is loaded into their specialized truck spreaders.

DFB · Apr 26, 2015

Bulk Greensand maybe?

Greensand has been used since the eighteenth century as a soil amendment and slow-releasing fertilizer (0-0-3). It is one of the best certified organic sources of potassium. It comes from sandy rock or sediment containing a high percentage of the mineral glauconite (greenish-black to blue-green). It contains potash, magnesium, iron, silica and can contain as many as 30 other trace minerals. The recommended usage is to broadcast 50 to 100 lbs. per 1,000 square feet. It improves plant health in general and is also be used to loosen heavy, clay soils. It will also improve the moisture retention of sandy soils. Greensand is OMRI listed for organic use

Gordon Gould · Apr 26, 2015

I know one thing - What ever it was it was free or very cheap. Farmers up here don't have any extra money to spend on something that doesn't have a lot of bang for the buck.

vtsnowedin · Apr 26, 2015

Well the water treatment plants have to pay to have it landfilled and landfill space is getting scarce. Maybe you could get them to pay you for taking it?
CSWD plan to send sludge to N.Y. draws criticism
Edit to add link to sludge story.

Brian Miller · Apr 26, 2015

I believe that the benefit of bio char is that the natural cavities in charcoal provide good spaces for beneficial microbes to set up shop & reproduce. It a good way to start rebuilding extremely damaged soil. But I have no idea if that's what you saw.

jenkinsph · Apr 26, 2015

Gordon,
Any chance this was slag? My dad would put 0 6 6 slag on the fields many years ago but I was too youngl to remember what it looked like.

davesl708 · Apr 26, 2015

It may have been similar to the product Milorganite. Milorganite is made from the sludge from waste treatment plants. It is black and looks like small sand.

Rustyiron · Apr 26, 2015

Gordon Gould said:
I know one thing - What ever it was it was free or very cheap. Farmers up here don't have any extra money to spend on something that doesn't have a lot of bang for the buck.

A friend puts ash on his fields from a paper mill for basically trucking costs. (another cheap lime alternate)

Billrog · Apr 26, 2015

Ash and bio char are two different commodity's and give different benefits. Through research it has been proven that the addition of bio char into agricultural compost provides many benefits to the end user.
1: greater water retention in the soil.
2: less compaction of the soil , enhancing root distribution.
3: locked in retention of microbial nutrients for vegetation to feed off.
4: a natural captured storage area for toxins, heavy metals, and NPK storage for for vegetation to acquire as needed.
5: the elimination of toxins, heavy metals and excess NPK leaching into ground water that contaminates our creeks , rivers, lakes and ground water.
6: An increase of yield in crop production of anywhere from 20% up to as high as 350% has been recorded by users in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and here in North America.
Bio char remains in the soil, continually working in it in a microbial way to enrich the soil for thousands of yrs. I just watched a documentary on this the other evening where it was used in the Amazon hundreds of yrs. ago to enrich the soil where other wise nothing would grow it's so acidic. Lots more info out there for those interested.

MHarryE · Apr 27, 2015

I'm with Rustyiron. We get many truckloads of ash every year got spreading on fields in place of using lime. They need to get rid of it so we get it for free although we must pay part of the trucking cost due to distance. Our source will truck up to 50 miles but we are 70 miles away so we only pay for 20 miles plus we must spread it ourselves. Closer and they would also spread it. The piles look like milled asphalt. Remember ashes are used to make lye - they are very caustic so they need to be treated with caution. One of our neighbors didn't get his spread in a timely manner, some kids found them neat to play in and got some nasty chemical burns.

vtsnowedin · Apr 27, 2015

Most ashes are grey in color not black. You have deliberately make charcoal by putting the fire out at the right time. So I think the OP was looking at a pile of composted sludge which looks like this pile my neighbor has.

vtsnowedin · Apr 27, 2015

Most ashes are grey in color not black. You have deliberately make charcoal by putting the fire out at the right time. So I think the OP was looking at a pile of composted sludge which looks like this pile my neighbor has.