Tom,
I never had any luck carbonizing grass/weeds with the grass-a-fire. One
would rat hole and the other needed denser charcoal bed. But Roger
Sampson rice husk method showed hope.
Working full time makes it unreliable to harvest dry grass/weeds late in
the season at least for this bag of old achy bones. In other words it's
not an easy fuel for a peasant. The baler went to the sale a bit ago and
the mower and rake goes this spring. But I now have an old and almost
functioning flail harvester that should work for compost production.
I hope to start phasing out grasses with Staghorn Sumac a much more
usable fuel.
Jeff
On 12/02/2013 11:39 PM, Tom Miles wrote:
Jeff,
We find that biochar from a downdraft gasifier composted 15% v/v with
alfalfa and wood chips makes a very nice compost. We have used it as a
substitute for a vermiculite-peat-bark blend. Tree seedling response
is generally good. Some species are pH sensitive and the alfalfa
pushes the compost pH up so adjustments need to be made. In Japan Dr.
Ogawa rinses high pH grass (bamboo) chars to reduce soluble alkali
before application to the tree root zone.
Biochar-peat and biochar--coco peat blends work well.
So if you have a gasifier in a location where there is no market for
power you can make heat for greenhouses and a char byproduct that you
can compost for use in the greenhouse. We estimate that the combined
savings from the heat (propane) and soil amendments for a 10 MMBtuh (3
MW) system are about $350,000 per year.
David Yarrow likes chars from grasses. You can make char in your
grass-a-fire.
Tom
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