Out & About Montana - Biochar by SuzAnne Miller

 Biochar! What is it and why I am talking about it?

Biochar is this incredible substance that results from gasifying organic matter – any kind of organic matter such as wood, manure, or garbage – through a process call pyrolysis.

Pyrolysis occurs when biomass is burned at very high temperatures in the absence of oxygen (yes, I too thought that oxygen was essential for burning). While this may sound like some new technology, it is actually an ancient process used in South America, and its use has caught the attention of many American scientists.

In 1879, explorers in the Amazon region of Brazil found what they called the Amazonian Dark Earths or "Terra Preta do Indio", which are incredibly fertile areas that native peoples created by adding biochar to the soil. In 2010, I was introduced to biochar through my other business, Dunrovin Research.

Many of you may not know that in addition to running Dunrovin Ranch, I operate a consulting firm called Dunrovin Research, that focuses on the “human dimensions” of natural resource management. That is, I conduct research to help natural resource managers and other public officials better understand the social, economic, cultural, and demographic aspects of managing the public’s natural resources such as our forests, fish, and wildlife.

This work has brought me into contact with some incredibly interesting and wonderful people. For the last two years, I have been working with officials from Mineral County , the Lolo National Forest , Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and Montana State University Extension Service to help the county identify specific ways in which they can improve and sustain both their economy and their natural environment. The project is called The Mineral County Challenge and sprang from an earlier project that I managed, called The Montana Challenge.

One of the goals of The Mineral County Challenge is to develop land in a way that both restores forest health and creates new jobs in Mineral County. To this end, a project is in the works to develop pyrolysis capability at the Tricon Timber Company.

In learning more about biochar and its potential to help Montana address forest health issues and promote economic development in forest communities, I have become a strong advocate of the technology (see attached papers regarding biochar in Montana and in the US), which lead to an invitation from my friend George Masnick (demographer at Harvard University) to attend a biochar burning in his friend Steve Schwartzman’s backyard. Daniel (Dunrovin’s Property Manager) and I attended the event, to witness how the ancient technology can be implemented with minimum cost.

Steve showed us how easy it is to make biochar in your back yard. He got a 55 gallon steel drum, cleaned it, and drilled six holes in the bottom. Five of the holes are in the center, while the sixth hole is near the rim.

   Steve and his wife used trimmings from their lilac bushes for this demonstration.

A small pit of sand is surrounded by several bricks that keep the steel drum off the sand and allow one to ignite the trimmings in the barrel.

 The barrel is placed on the bricks and ignited through the hole on the bottom near the rim.

The barrel is filled with the trimmings and the fire is exposed to the air while the moisture and volatiles burn off.

Once the smoke clears, Steve begins to starve the flames of oxygen by shoveling sand around the bottom of the barrel and putting a lid on the top that is weighted down by rocks.

The biochar is ready within two days. Steve adds the biochar to his garden plots, which has greatly increased the productivity of his garden – and he claims the vegetables taste better!