Interview September 2020
How did you get started with biochar?
I first heard about Terra Preta about 15 years ago. It was a fascinating idea. I kept my ear to the ground to learn more, but the information was scattered and not that convincing for a long time. Eventually, I connected with John Miedema of BioLogical Carbon, and he helped me give it a try in our composting operation. We composted two windrows, side by side, one with 5% by volume biochar added. The biochar pile was slower to heat up initially, but then it caught up and when we analyzed it 14 weeks later, it had more moisture, nitrates and other nutrients, and better quality overall, than the pile without biochar.
What are you doing now?
We use the biochar activated compost in about 8 different soil products that we make, as well as custom soil blends. We would use biochar in all of our products if we could afford it and if customers demanded it. Feedback we get from customers is that they like the biochar compost products, but the price is too high for some of them.
How can we improve the economics of biochar?
It would really help if some of the other benefits were monetized. Biochar reduces odors and greenhouse gas emissions from the composting process. We need to educate people about the benefits, but our company does not have money to fund an ad campaign for our biochar products. One difficulty is that early on, biochar was overhyped and there was misinformation about it that we have to overcome now. But we will get there. Biochar reminds me of the early days of the compost industry. We didn’t know much about compost 40 years ago. We know a lot more now. We do what we do with biochar and compost because we are confident of our claims. It takes time to develop a new industry. Bottom line, biochar is a very interesting material. Just like the extremely productive Terra Preta soils, all we need to do is put the right ingredients together and let time and Nature do the work.