AusBonsai

Biochar improves the soil texture and ecology, increasing its ability to retain fertilizers and release them slowly. It naturally contains many of the micronutrients needed by plants, such as selenium. It is also safer than other "natural" fertilizers such as manure or sewage since it has been disinfected at high temperature, and since it releases its nutrients at a slow rate, it greatly reduces the risk of water table contamination.

nealweb wrote:Sounds great! Not too great though I hope or everyone will want it and they will dig up and destroy the whole Amazon basin

The production of charcoal is sometimes known as 'Pit Pyrolysis'. This ancient process has changed little over this time and most store brought charcoal is produced by this extremely low tech high emissions method and could be seen as less than environmentally friendly. Variable temperatures used produce variable qualities of charcoal, Low temperature charcoal will have a lot of retained pyrolygneous compounds that reduce the charcoals ability to hold nutrients, and reduce the fixed carbon percentage. This charcoal will decompose relatively quickly in the soil. Some BBQ charcoals have added chemicals such as paraffin, borax and hydrocarbon solvents which help make lighting BBQs easier but these chemicals can have adverse effects on you and your soils, they should be avoided. Mined coal is a very dense form of carbon without the porous structure of Biochar, Mined coal comes in many forms and has many uses, improving soil structure is not one of them. BlackEarth Products recommends avoiding the use of store brought charcoal as a soil additive and only using products classed as 'Biochar'.