Cowpea is the best responding species to Biochar application - Bohdan Lojka | Tropentag 2019 - Student blog

Cowpea is the best responding species to Biochar application - Bohdan Lojka

Sat, 09/22/2012 - 22:56 — De-Registered User

Bohdan Lojka presented on the topic “Amazonian dark earths - potential of biochar for their recreation. He introduced that Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) or Terra preta are; anthropogenic soils which are highly fertile spots in rather unfertile lands. He further explained that biochar is a type of charcoal which is carbon rich and stable. Biochar is known to increase soil nutrient content, increase pH, improve microbial activity, increase water retention, reduce leaching and improve plant growth as well as yields. The research found that majority of the farmers know about the benefits of biochar but do not use it because it is expensive to use on entire farms. It was also found that biochar application for rice production produced no significant differences in biomass production while cowpea was found to be the best responding species to biochar application. In the case of cowpea, an application of biochar and manure together provided the best results. In conclusion, Mr. Lojka recommended that further long term experiments are required to better understand the impact of biochar on soil quality and crop yields.

soil quality

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