Biochar/terra pretta

Biochar however it shows up is good with me!  Anything other than Saturday morning/early afternoon works for us.  Even Saturday mid-afternoon is okay unless of course, there are good garage sales in her area.  Then we could even manage Saturday noon since we could garage sale that way and end up at the biochar demonstration with hopefully a car full of interesting treasures. 

Saturday afternoon or Sunday, perhaps?  Do many of us have jobs that are on a nine to five schedule?

 I have a contractor showing up on Monday and need to get a lot of work done before he arrives. I am free anytime after that.

OK, then lets go Saturday the 8th. I'll be there before noon to get things going, but about all there is to see will be occurring later in the afternoon. There's not a lot to all this. If the day happens to be unusually windy it will put an end to the project.

What should folks bring?  How do they get directions to get there?  Do you think any marshmallows will be harmed during this demonstration?

I will be there. Just need directions.

Thanks again Jay. To get here go up Kaiwiki Rd. 

From Hilo side: take  Bayfront highway so you are heading Hamakua direction. Kaiwiki is the first left mauka after the singing bridge (Wailuku), the sign coming from Hilo says Wainaku. Actually you will cross Wainaku and do a little jog, but keep coming uphill. 

Coming from Hamakua side toward Hilo, if you reach singing bridge you've gone too far. It's the right where the "overpass" is. Not sure if there is a Wainaku sign from this direction. 

Go up Kaiwiki 4 miles from the highway. You will pass an old church on the right, then a park on the left. When the road becomes a one lane road I am the first house on the left. Property is lined with cedar/juniper, Miller and 2375 on mailbox, long driveway, yellow house with green roof. (Note, not all mailboxes are in order, go figure!)  I will show you where to park.

If questions call 969-9432. I promise to have my tea to share.

Sherri

Will there be someone to take pictures and write a summary for those of us who can't make it?

Thanks.

Did the scope out run at Sherri's place today, and tried some of her excellent tea. Reminding everyone that we'll be having this event Saturday. I'll be at Sherri's place by 11, with chainsaw. The size of the burn will depend on how much help I've got, but if anyone else would like to cut weed trees I'm sure it would be appreciated. Again, we'll be exploring the technique of what was most likely done to create terra pretta soils historically rather than getting too worked up about the particulars of "biochar" of which within the concept/phenomenon of "terra pretta" is only one component of many. Hope to see many of you there. Had an interesting and rousing conversation with Sherri today and it's great to meet those who understand and are proactively on page as to where we need to be heading. Sherri is the real deal and an asset to our community.

See you Saturday!

As requested, perhaps someone can help me take our first informational video which we will permanently embed in the site and will prove to be a resource from here on out.  I've got a camera that will handle that if someone can manage holding it.

A photo/video resource library sounds terrific.

Is there a potluck and seed plant swap along with the TP soil and biochar demo?

I would think that would be the appropriate thing to do, food and seed works for me.  When you guys come please let me show you where to park. Ppl have a tendency to park in the road--my driveway is an old cane road.

See you tomorrow, Sherri

Charcoal Today:

Hey well that was a good time and I'm pooped but dinner is on, we all met some new faces and had some great success. Pretty successful burn with completely green weed wood. Now the the cat is out of the bag about the "technique" or lack of one. . . let's enumerate the advantages of what we'll just call "slash and char."

1) Yields are higher than many would expect if the burn pile is well tended. We trucked 6 wheel barrows full of wood and got one of good quality dense char in 6 hours. That's a GREAT rate of return for soggy wet low quality material.

2) No capital costs.

3) No preparation. That tree we burnt was cut at 11 today.

4) The char is high grade as it's a high temperature reduction

5) It's human scale, meaning that it's not such a giant project that one person with a saw couldn't take the job on in a farm environment and incorporated it into a weekly(or daily) routine.

6) It's mobile. You can burn right by the tree you just cut, rather than lug to a kiln or pit you can't move. No meaningful transportation costs.

7) You're burning very hot so there's very little smoke. In fact, smoke is an indicator that you're not doing a very good job.

8) You could have roasted a pig.

Downsides? Only two as I can see.

1) It requires a certain level of skill and semi-constant attention all day. Especially towards the end of the burn you've got to be attentive or you can lose a lot of material by being negligent. Everyone today seemed to "get it" however and I doubt that's a problem. I'm sure anyone who burns 2 or 3 piles will be an ace.

2) It requires enough water on site that you can be assured at the end of the day you can put the fire out. If you don't or can't, it will re-ignite and you'll end up with ash and nothing else.

In a holistic sense, that's damned efficient. All in all, I think the "traditional" technique is pretty hard to beat.

Successes for this particular project? I was surprised at how much char one got out of weed wood, as most all of my char is ohia or guava which is both pretty dense. Ohia takes a lot more work to cut and doesn't produce a lot more char, at least by volume, although certainly the carbon content must well be higher. That's not such a huge deal all in all, and I believe volume is good. Also, I'd say that we had some good conversations about how to scale up the process, the techniques which seem again a completely organic response to a natural need, and that was valuable. Interesting for sure.

Mahalo, Jay and Sherri! We woke this morning in gratitude for learning so much yesterday...and that on top of spending the afternoon with such wonderful folks. What an wonderful process! While it was evident that you'd honed the craft, Jay, seeing is believing and I know at some point we'll be able to reproduce your burn style. It was like magic to watch the perfect sized charcoal - and such a huge pile of it - rise up from the bottom of the pile like big black diamonds of life's media. Really, really nice!

Of all the "barrel burns" I've watched on youtube and elsewhere, none felt right to me...too harsh, too violent - something. But watching you with the "natural" kiln seemed just that - a natural, sustainable, peaceful burn out on the slopes of the aina above the great Pacific. What a great dream I've landed in! While watching you with your pitchfork and shovel - tending the fire and propping yourself up on them at the elbow for some small talk - I had the sense that there wasn't a time in our history that some farmer hadn't stood in just that position - leaning on his stick perhaps, but you certainly captured that energetic. Lovely stuff.

While you were tending the kiln, Jay, I was imagining the same situation at our land. Just when we reached the part of the burn where I could see the guys would go to get the beer you mentioned that it was a poor time to leave for beer. So thanks for the grief you've spared us by sharing your real-time experiences. 

We'll be at it with our guava and ohia slash as soon as we get a bit of moisture. Just noticed on your drought monitor link that our area is rated "extreme drought" but hopefully that will pass. Do come down when you can...I think you'll enjoy our spot.

Sherri, thank you for the tea lessons. I learned so much and heard so many tips from you that I was stirred with them all during the night. You've instilled a lot of possibility in me - flows of it came through the stuck spots - and I'll be implementing some of the things that you showed me. I know I'll see you again soon. Thank you!

Cheyenne

LOL, thanks Cheyenne. I agree, I feel the same way about the process. I've felt that way in a couple of things I've done, mostly in trying to rediscover lost sailing techniques when all of a sudden you realize, damn, this is how it was done and there's almost a sense of "possession" in that of being in the presence of an archetype. Not to get too out of control with all that, but anyone who's left a fog bound anchorage on a sailing boat under sail on the early morning ebb will relate to and agree with that sense whole-heartedly. Epigenetic memory? Who the hell knows, but a keen awareness that you're doing something that's been done a zillion times and can give a person very real awareness as to why many cultures feel that they stand in the presence of ancestral spirits when they do such things.

All in all, the "slash and char" technique when you consider that burnt not even two tanks of gas in the saw to cut all that, that there were no vehicles or other processing involved, that's really really carbon negative. This is why I see "biochar" in a future more constructively promoted as a "trade skill" than as a product. It really needs to be done on site in most cases to realize all it's benefits.

We will need to do another burn here soon and now that we've got able hands perhaps we can get a video of the process to put that on the web page. There was just too much going on yesterday and too much conversation to disrupt to do all that. I'd bet Sherri wouldn't mind us doing that again and getting rid of the rest of that tree, and she's got a very nice place to host it. We could do a pretty good service by putting that on the web, especially the "quenching" technique because it's something that really needs to be seen to understand, but it's obviously pretty effective. Or maybe at your place some time soon.

So looking up the capacity of Sherri's wheelbarrow. That's 10 cubic feet. If I had been working harder and talking less I probably could have processed 2 piles, maybe 3 if pushing, which is a cubic yard a day. At current prices that's earning a tradesman's wage. Hard work, but what isn't?

? is there a benefit to using wet wood over dry or would it work just the same ?

In my technique there definitely is, as it processes so hot and fast if were dry you couldn't keep up.

Of course wet wood is not a problem to acquire here. As yesterday, that tree was going on the fire within an hour of cutting.

I've uploaded 3 pictures from the burn at Sherri's place.

A man, a plan, a fire - biochar!

Here's a link to the images full-sized with captions

Jay's doing the "Biochar Gothic" motif, but he's worked for it.