Biochar Projects

John has been developing and promoting efficient farm-scale agro-forestry biochar systems off and on since 2015. He has designed and built biochar cookers that boil maple syrup and grill food while producing small amounts of biochar as a by-product, and he has overseen the inoculation and application of this home-made biochar in grass-growing experiments conducted by college interns and others on the farm. In addition, while no longer really an activity of Scatter Good Farm, large amounts of biochar, from CharGrow and New England Biochar, have been applied at the farm each year since 2015, so at this point nearly all of Growing to Give’s vegetable plots have been enriched by commercial, MOFGA-approved biochar, as well as some of the flower beds elsewhere on the farm. In addition, a mix of commercial and home-made biochar is used in tree and bush transplanting throughout the farm. FMI about biochar, please see the section titled, “Biochar Resources”, on the SGF website, and check out this Guardian article about biochar dated November 29, 2019.