Has anyone used dry cornstalks to make biochar? I have this pile I was thinking of using as the small diameter finishing material. I'm planning to use chopped up unused HT pallets from my job as my main burn.
#grownostr #asknostr #permaculture #permies #biochar #gardening
I have not used cornstalks but I have used lots of other dry stalks it's all carbon at the end of the day.
Been using some heat treated pallets for some burns too. I put some neodymium magnets in a plastic milk carton and fish out the nails with that once it's all been quenched and cooled.
Apparently you can make the biochar more paramagnetic with ferrous sulphate. Hope to find out one day wether just burning pallets with nails achieves something similar or not.
Thanks for the input. I wasn't sure if they would be too ashey
Never used cornstalks but I just did a batch with a lot of dried chunky sunflower stalks and they worked well
Thanks, I have a bunch of sunflower stalks I was looking at using too
Never tried cornstalks, but every batch I've made from marginal materials has turned out better than expected.
Run it and let us know.
No but let us know if it works. I tried to compost corn stalks and only about half of it decomposed. The rest is just organic material in the soil
