Interest in biochar surges

Abstract

Interest in biochar surges In the late 1990s, soil scientist Johannes Lehmann was working in the central Amazon to help restore degraded soils. Other researchers had discovered that the region’s fertile terra preta, meaning “black earth” in Portuguese, contained high amounts of charcoal made by ancient civilizations. Zones of the rich, black soil are surrounded by infertile soils. Lehmann had a hunch that the charcoal was responsible for giving the black soils their renowned fertility. In 2000, he added charcoal to degraded Amazonian soil in an outdoor experiment. It greatly increased the fertility of the soil (Mitigation & Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 2006, DOI: 10.1007/s11027-005-9006-5). Today, Lehmann is a professor of soil biogeochemistry and soil fertility at Cornell University and still studies the effects of charcoal on soil. He works with a substance often referred to as biochar. The solid material is formed by decomposing biomass at elevated temperatures