Sweet and and Sour Sour Dirt Dirt A little A little understanding of pH understanding of pH to help you use to help you use biochar better biochar better Sweet Sweet and Sour Sour Dirt Dirt Contains animation Contains animation. View in Slide Show mode
14
Embed
And Sour Dirt Sweet and Sour Dirt A little understanding of pH to help you use biochar better Sweet Sour Dirt Sweet and Sour Dirt Contains animation Contains.
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Sweet andand SourSour DirtDirt
A little understanding of pH A little understanding of pH to help you use to help you use biochar betterbiochar better
slightly sweetMike Lieberman of UrbanOrganicGardener.com
We don’t recommend this!
We don’t recommend this!
It’s possible to taste a difference between different types of soil
It’s possible to taste a difference between different types of soil
• The flavor of a soil affects…– How well different plants grow– What kind of microbes thrive in the soil– How well the solid holds on to various minerals
• We talk about soil’s “flavor” as pH
What Exactly is pH?
• Water allows some hydrogen ions to escape from their molecules
• pH tells the concentration of H+ in the solution• pH is a logarithmic (not linear) scale
~3~
pHpower of… …hydrogen ions (H+)…
Concentration of H+ vs. distilled water
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14neutral more acidicmore acidic more acidicmore acidic more basicmore basicmore basicmore basic
10X100X
1,000X10,000X
100,000X
1/101/100
1/1,0001/10,000
1/100,000etc. etc.
…in water
compare with compare with
distilled waterdistilled water
Finding the pH (without tasting)
4
Hydrangeas’ colors reflect soil pH
Litmus paper colors shows pH
Meters read pH directly
Do-it-yourself
home test kits
Strength of pH• AcidsAcids release H+
• BasesBases suck up H+
• AcidsAcids and basesbases neutralizeneutralize each other
~5~
Biochar Biochar is is basic (alkaline)basic (alkaline). .
It can It can neutralizeneutralize acidic soil. acidic soil.
Biochar and pH• Biochar is usually alkalinealkaline• Biochar pH depends on the
pyrolysis temperature
~13~
typical typical formation formation
temperature temperature rangerange
typical typical pH pH
rangerange
biochar acidic soil
neutralizes
NOTE: ash created by pyrolysis is strongly alkaline strongly alkaline (pH 12-13)
Biochar’s neutralizing power diminishes after a few years.
Using Biochar to Change Soil pH• If your soil is already alkalinealkaline, don’t use biochar!don’t use biochar!• Because biochar is a pretty
strong basestrong base, use it sparinglysparingly
~14~
First – Test First – Test Your Soil !!!!!Your Soil !!!!!
• To keep pH moderate, add small amounts of biochar every few years, not all at once.• If your soil is strongly acidicstrongly acidic (<ph 5), you can mix a small amount of ashash into the biochar.
– Ash adds important minerals (calcium, sulfur, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium)