Freerangefarmer

Does anyone know where one can find info for building an Adam Retort? I've found a couple of sites discussing it, with one or two pictures, but no real details or schematics. Thanks!

I have not received a response yet regarding the Biochar 1000. Interesting article from Rodale: Making carbon crediting really work for farmers | Rodale Institute Making carbon crediting really work for farmers | Rodale Institute FRF

Erich, Thanks. The Climate Trust looks like a good lead. I have e-mailed Peter Weisberg. One of the next steps would be to run some numbers on the cost of buying/operating a mobile torrefaction system. The Biochar 1000 does not appear to be for sale yet. I'm looking for other high-tech as well as low tech solutions. FRF

Erich, Could you please be so kind as to post some links to the research done at Virginia Tech? Thanks, FRF

If a group of farmers wanted to form a co-op to sequester carbon (biochar) in their fields and to thereby create and sell carbon credits that would help offset the cost of the creation of the biochar, how would they go about documenting the carbon credits that they created? The formation of the co-op would spread the cost of the paperwork, equipment, testing, etc, out over all the farms. Has anyone crunched the numbers on anything like this? Free Range Farmer

Personally, I was thinking about mixing the biochar with fresh horse manure and the wood shavings used for bedding (the shavings are typically saturated with urine) and composting for maybe 60 days, and then spreading with an old manure spreader. Then incorporating with either a disk or plow and/or a subsoiler. I would expect that this mixture would be moist enough that dust would not be a problem. FRF

Essay, Thanks for the links! I have sent out some e-mails to nearby universities asking about mobile units over the weekend. I'll post what I hear. A mobile unit would be great for the major tree thinning that we need to do as that will probably generate at least 4 cords of logs, not counting the small branches. We almost always have a "burn pile" somewhere on the farm for brush, branches, etc. So I'd like to have a system to utilize this material. Also, we always have some plant material removed from garden beds that we can't compost because of disease, and biochar seems a good use for that material too. You know, this would be a good use for all the leaves that towns generally collect every fall. How hard would it be to process leaves? Thanks for the feedback! FRF

lemit, Located in the SE with red clay soils (acidic). Our farm blog: http://growingbeyondorganic.blogspot.com/ FRF

Erich, I checked out your link. It looks like the ag tread tractor tires do a pretty good job with a tarp on soil. FRF

Freeztar, Many thanks for the feedback. I'll give the single barrel approach a try. FRF

New guy here. :) I am interested in making biochar for use on my small farm. Most of the simple means of production that I have found online either produce a very small quantity per batch or require large pits, with an associated danger of a person or animal falling through the soil layer and being severely burned. Also, the fires typically seem like they have to burn for an extended period. I am looking for some input on ways to make moderate amounts of biochar, without large expenditures of time or expense for equipment. Below are my current thoughts about making moderate amounts of biochar. I have a long row of pines that I need to take down as they are starting to shade the kitchen garden near the house, and would like to make biochar from them in the spring or summer. I read that some make biochar by taking a 55 gallon steel drum, making air inlet holes in the side up about a 1/3 of the barrel height from the bottom, then installing a grate just above the air wholes. As the wood above the grate burns, the smaller pieces drop through the grate into the bottom of the barrel where there is little or no oxygen to complete combustion. My current thoughts are to enlarge this design vertically. First have a steel barrel that has a clamp on lid sitting on the bottom (without the lid). Then stack a second barrel on top of the first. The second barrel would have no top or bottm. It would have short sections of angle iron welded on the inside at the bottom that project about 6" out the bottom to help it nest on top of the bottom barrel. It would have a ring of air holes close to the bottom and a grate of 1/2" steel rods just above the air holes. The entire top barrel would be filled with wood and ignited from the bottom through the air holes. The smaller charred pieces would drop through filling the bottom barrel. Addition wood could be added at the top until the bottom barrel was filled. Then the top barrel would be removed and the lid installed on the bottom barrel. This would probably need a steel post set securely in the ground to stabilize the whole thing. I would envision loading the wood onto a dump trailer that I have, backing that up to the barrels to allow easy feeding of additonal wood. Efficiency? Other ideas? Freerangefarmer

Excuse me if this has been mentioned, but what about spreading it on a concrete slab and driving back and forth over it with a car tire, then just sweeping it up?