Biochar Basics: An A-to-Z Guide to Biochar Production, Use, and Benefits

Report Summary: For landowners and agencies seeking to implement grassland restoration projects and hazardous fuels reduction projects, biochar can be a key piece of the restoration economics puzzle. Biochar plays a major role in moving excess organic matter from overstocked forest stands to the degraded range, forest, mine, and agricultural soils that need it. Biochar has several unique chemical and physical properties that make it very useful for retaining nutrients and water and improving soil conditions. It can be used to restore forest, range, or mine soils by adding a high carbon product. Biochar applications can also be a vehicle for carbon sequestration made from renewable and sustainable woody biomass. For these reasons, biochar has the potential to be a valuable by-product of fuels reduction and restoration efforts, creating a beneficial resource out of materials that would otherwise go to waste. This “A-Z guide” highlights recent Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) science and covers methods to make biochar on site, including using piles, kilns, and air curtain burners. It also details three uses for biochar (agricultural, forest restoration, and mine land reclamation), and methods for application, including biochar spreaders.