Presented by Elango Jeyaraj, Executive Director of ODAM, India, during GIZ's session, "Biochar and Its Practical Application to Restore Degraded Lands", at GLF Africa 2021.

1. J.Elango,
Executive Director,
ODAM,
Tiruchuli – 626 129
Tamil Nadu.
Email: odamelango@gmail.com Web: www.odamindia.org
Production of Biochar soil amendments
from agricultural/municipal wastes and
prosopis juliflora.

2. Selection of feedstock for biochar
• Any biomass which is available in your area
Existing trials with the feedstock;
Prosopis juliflora, Municipal wastes (organic),
Agriculture wastes like sugar cane trash,
cotton stakes, seed pods of groundnut etc

3. In early 1950s, Prosopis juliflora was
introduced for fuel need in Tamil Nadu
state in India.
• invading the cultivable fertile lands
during continuous drought
• deep rooted and could not be removed
manually
• fertile agriculture lands are affected by
its spread
• Small farmers and landless agriculture
labourers were worst affected due to
these above combined natural and
anthropogenic activities.
This severely impacted on long term
livelihood activities and strategies of the
people in this region.

4. In 2009 we come to aware that Terra Preta, meaning black
earth, in Portugese, and its application to the farming
activities could be a better option for enhancing the
fertility of nutrient poor soil by increasing the soil carbon.

5. Plate 1. Traditional Charcoal Making
a) Stacking of Prosopis wood logs
b) Structure of traditional kiln
c) Grading of produced charcoal
a)
b) c)

6. a)
b)
Plate 2. Agriculture wastes
a) Outer shell of Jatropha seed pod
b) Cone and dust of Bajra millet
c) Sugarcane waste
a)
b) c)

7. Plate 3. Pyrolysis of Agriculture wastes
a) Oil drum kiln with PVC pipe packed with Agri waste
b) Kiln covered with iron plate
c) Top of the kiln covered fully with sand to prevent oxygen entry
a) b) c)

8. Plate 4. Charcoal from Agri waste
a)
b)
c)

9. Challenges
•In the traditional mud kiln method, around 10% of
un-burnt wood logs
•Needs pulverizer to crush the biochar to powder
form for effective application in the soil
•In the tar drum method of converting agri waste to
biochar, only small scale level of biochar production
So, there is a need for improved biochar kiln which
can increase the percentage of conversion rate
(feedstock to biochar) in short time with minimum
man power

10. Initially, application of raw charcoal powder in the soil caused
mortality of seedlings. Later, the charcoal powder was
saturated with farmyard manure and de-oiled seed cakes of
different oil seeds by adding water. The mixture was stirred
periodically before application.

11. Trials for the beginners…
The pits of 2 x 2 x 1.5 (breadth x width x depth) feet dimension.
After, digging the pits, top soil was filled up to half the depth of
the pit, and then biochar soil amendments can be filled in up to
2 to 3 inches. Again top soil was filled and then the vegetable
seeds can be sown and watering …

12. Further, the saturated biochar soil amendments can be
applied to various vegetable species such as onion, chilli,
kidney beans and moringa, ground nut, and fruit species
such as Sapota and Amla and jasmine plants. After
application of biochar soil amendments, all the species
exhibited even growth, increased plant height and
formation of more roots than the regular practice of
vegetable cultivation with chemical fertilisers and farm
yard manure.

13. Based on the results, farmers were invited to observe
the yield in the trial plots. Since the water holding
capacity of the red soil is very poor in the semi-arid
region, the farmers were asked themselves to compare
the water holding capacity of black and red soil. They
were able to understand that if the charcoal is buried in
the red soil it would act like black soil in retaining
water in the top soil.

15. Thank you!