Thread by @NaijAgroForum

Today, I'll be talking about soil maintenance and Agribusiness best practices. I'll start with Soil Maintenance.
Some days ago, I asked if anyone knows anybody or organization working on Biochar, I didn't get a reply, I was quiet amazed and disappointed at same time.

But not to digress from the point; have any of you heard of the word *Biochar* ? Or understand the concept of *Biochar* Ok, let's start with what we're familiar with - Charcoal.

When farmers finish clearing their land, you notice that there's usually this heap somewhere in the center of the farm, covered with enough dried grasses, and underneath the heap are logs of wood burning into charcoal. What's happening right there is called Pyrolysis.

But I'm here to talk about the technique of getting the char or otherwise known as Biochar, So let's focus on what exactly is Biochar and how does it help us as farmers?

What is Biochar?

This' a 2000 year old practice that converts agriculture waste into soil enhancer that can hold carbon, boost food security, and increase soil biodiversity, and discourage deforestation. The process creates a fine-grained,

highly porous charcoal that helps soils retain water and nutrients. Biochar is found in soils around the world as a result of vegetation fires and historic soil management practices,

In certain cases where you have huge chunks of charcoal, it's broken down into fine pellets like the picture below (please don't mind the quality of the picture, couldn't find something better in a shorter period of time).

Intensive study of biochar-rich dark Earth's in Amazon (Terra preta) led to a wider appreciation of biochar's unique soil properties as a soil enhancer. The research on Biochar started after scientist wanted to find out why Amazon Forest's was rich in organic content/nutrients.

We don't really advise bush burning, because when not controlled properly, burns off the organic matters in the top soil. Now, the reason why the old farmers will advice you to burn the weeds and trees and bushes before planting is because of the ash and char that is left behind

on the soil surface. What you don't are happening is that I'm you're destroying the top soil and trying to compensate for it at same time with the char and ashes left behind from the fire. So what if we don't have to burn the fields, but can still make the soil better, somewhat?

Biochar can be an important tool to increase food security and crop diversity in areas with severely depleted soils, scarce organic resources, and inadequate water and chemical Fertilizer supplies.

Biochar also improves water quality and quantity by increasing soil retention of nutrients and agrochemicals for plant and crop utilization. More nutrients stay in The soil instead of leaching into groundwater and causing pollution.

Biochar is considered a unique adsorbent due to its high specific surface area and highly carbonaceous nature. Therefore, soil amendments with small amounts of Biochar could result in higher adsorption and consequently,

bioavailability of contaminants to microbial communities, plants, earthworms, and other organisms in the soil. At the end of the day, Biochar helps increase your world, and helps your soil fight off certain soil diseases.

BIOCHAR TECHNOLOGY

There are different ways to make biochar, but all of them involves heating biomass with little or no oxygen to drive off volatile gasses, leaving carbon behind. This simple process is called THERMAL DECOMPOSITION

usually from Pyrolysis (for those who want to get clean energy from this) or Gassification. These methods can produce clean energy in the form of gas or oil along with the Biochar (that's entirely another research work I'm working on).

The world is really trying to go *Green*, and in every little way we can, we must and should contribute to it. I didn't want to bore us with how Biochar helps fight global warming, there's a million and one research out there on Biochar, trust me,

it holds huge potentials for us as farmers, with already wide spread application all over the world. And so, in other not to drag this session longer than it should be, I made a power point on the Agribusiness best practices for Maize

(this incl the process from land preparation to weeding, application of Fertilizer and urea, types of seeds to use and when to use it, types of pesticides and herbicides, when to use them and how to use them).