Dear Crispin,
Not sure I understand your question about "speeding up access to ash". The ash would be available directly after ashing and long before biomass in the same soil as long as the ash is not heated to make forms that are not soluble. And the nutrients from the ash I think a non-point when talking about the benefits of biochar. I thing the benefits of using biochar is the changes it makes to soil and soil dynamics and that will be different for each site and different biochar products. Regards Frank Frank Shields Control Laboratories, Inc. 42 Hangar Way Watsonville, CA 95076 (831) 724-5422 tel (831) 724-3188 fax [email protected] www.compostlab.com _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Crispin Pemberton-Pigott Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 10:53 AM To: 'Discussion of biomass cooking stoves' Subject: Re: [Stoves] [biochar-production] Re: Stoves Digest, Vol 14,Issue 17 Dear Frank I understand that the silica is what makes rice do so much better - after all, it needs silica in exactly that form to grow the fastest. You points about the composition of the char are important - particularly if stoves are supposed to produce something useful. Is there any good reason to suppose that putting the whole mass, the whole biomass, into the soil, perhaps chipped or ground up? Why would charring it first do anything except speed up access to ash? Regards Crispin
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