Biochar has emerged as a game-changing soil amendment for sustainable agriculture and landscaping. Its carbon-rich structure, long-term stability, and environmental benefits have gained the attention of farmers, arborists, and gardeners alike.
However, there’s one crucial caveat to achieving its full potential: the need to charge it properly before use. Pre-charged biochar blends have risen in popularity as they combine the benefits of biochar with ready-to-apply nutrients and microbial life, streamlining the process for users.
Key Points
- Biochar alone absorbs nutrients from the soil, making them temporarily unavailable to plants
- Biochar can be “charged” with compost, manure, or humates
- There are drawbacks to manure and compost charged biochar that are avoided with humates
- We only use humates to charge our biochar to avoid potential issues
How are charged biochar blends important for tree health, how do they enhance soil ecosystems, and what are the practical steps for their application? Whether you’re managing an urban forest, an orchard, or backyard trees, this blog will give you insights to maximize tree health while championing sustainability.
What Does it Mean to Charge Biochar and Why Does It Matter?
Biochar in its raw form is a powerful soil amendment, but it comes with a hitch: its high porosity means it can adsorb nutrients from the soil, making them temporarily unavailable to plants. This is where charging comes in. Charging biochar involves combining it with nutrient-rich and microbe-packed organic material to “prime” it for application. Charged biochar blends are biochars that have already gone through this preparation, making them a more convenient and effective option for soil improvement.
These biochar blends often include ingredients like humates, compost, aged manure, and mycorrhizal fungi, each bringing unique benefits to the mix. Such materials enrich the biochar with nutrients and beneficial microbes, allowing it to immediately start enhancing the soil when applied.
Learn more about how VITAL Blend can impact the root zone of urban trees
Why Biochar Blends Work
Whenever we’re talking about a “biochar blend” the assumption is that it is biochar (our product is Naked Char) and some type of organic material loaded with nutrients. The biochar and the “inoculant” are mixed and the biochar absorbs the nutrients and microbial populations in the organic matter. The biomass, even after nutrients and microbes have been absorbed into the biochar, is still loaded with beneficial organic matter. Charged biochar works so well because they have these three properties:
- Immediate Impact: They provide nutrients and microbial life right from the start.
- Simplified Use: Eliminates the need for users to charge biochar themselves, saving time.
- Enhanced Results: Synergistic effects from combining biochar with nutrient-rich amendments.
Biochar blends set the stage for robust soil health and tree growth, turning biochar from a passive component into a dynamic partner in sustainable land care.
How Does a Biochar Blend Support Tree and Shrub Health?
Healthy soil is the foundation of thriving trees and shrubs. Charged biochar blends deliver several key benefits to the soil ecosystem. They enhance the rhizosphere—the dynamic zone of soil influenced by root activity—ensuring trees can grow stronger, healthier, and more resilient.
1. Enhancing Nutrient Availability
Charged biochar acts as a nutrient reservoir in the soil. Nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and many micronutrients, introduced during the charging process, are adsorbed by the biochar’s porous structure. These nutrients are then slowly released into the soil, supplying trees with a steady flow of essential elements over time.
2. Boosting Microbial Activity
The microbes added during the charging process play a crucial role in supporting tree health. In the rhizophagy cycle, trees absorb these microbes into their roots, where nutrients are extracted from them. Charged biochar serves as a habitat for these microbes, creating a thriving microbial community that actively participates in the nutrient cycle.
3. Improving Soil Structure and Water Retention
Biochar’s physical structure improves soil aeration and water-holding capacity. For trees, this means reduced water stress, particularly during drought. The improved soil structure also facilitates root penetration, allowing trees and shrubs to access nutrients and water more efficiently.
4. Reducing Nutrient Leaching
Nutrient leaching is a common problem in many soils, particularly sandy or compacted ones. Biochar’s ability to hold onto nutrients minimizes this issue, ensuring that nutrients stay in the root zone where they are needed most.
5. Promoting Long-Term Soil Health
Unlike most fertilizers, which offer short-term boosts, biochar is stable in the soil for decades. This long-term presence supports sustainable soil health, benefiting both trees and the broader ecosystem.
What are Best Practices for Applying Charged Biochar Blends?
The application of charged biochar blends varies depending on whether you are planting new trees or caring for existing ones. Here are some practical steps to guide you.
1. For Newly Planted Trees and Shrubs
- Dig the planting hole as usual.
- Mix charged biochar blend with the excavated soil. A 10%-20% biochar mix by volume is typically recommended.
- Use this amended soil to backfill the hole, ensuring the roots are surrounded by the nutrient-rich mix.
2. For Established Trees
- Identify the tree’s drip line (the area under the outermost branches).
- Spread the charged biochar blend evenly around the drip line.
- Gently incorporate it into the topsoil using a rake or similar tool, be careful not to damage the roots.
3. Timing and Frequency
- Apply biochar blends during the growing season for maximum effectiveness.
- Reapplication may be needed every few years, depending on the soil and tree needs.
4. Complementary Practices
Combine charged biochar blends with mulch to further enhance soil fertility and moisture retention. Mulch helps to protect the biochar from UV exposure and maintain soil temperature, while the organic matter continues to feed the soil microbiome over time.
Success Stories with Our VITAL Blend Biochar Blends
The benefits of charged biochar blends are not just theoretical—they have been demonstrated in many real-world applications. Here are some examples:
Key Points
- Urban trees are often planted in compacted soils, our biochar blends improve soil structure
- Our granular and liquid soil amendments contain pure biochar and freshwater-sourced humates that promote healthy microbiomes and enhance the organic matter in soils.
- Our products are highly concentrated, so you don’t need very much to create an impact
- Using humate-charged biochar decreases the need for synthetic fertilizers
1. Urban Forestry Projects
In cities facing challenges like soil compaction and pollution, our VITAL Blend charged biochar has been used to revitalize struggling trees. We have worked with numerous municipalities to increase the survivability of newly planted trees. The city of Greenfield, Indiana used VITAL Blend as a soil amendment and the trees showed enhanced root growth, less susceptibility to stress from drought, salt damage, or lack of nutrients, and thrived even with some soil compaction. VITAL Blend is an all-organic combination of activated carbon blended with humate. The treatment was followed by a modified application of ShortStop tree growth management. Greenfield is still actively planting trees and is an Arbor Day Foundation Tree City.
- Orchards, Agroforestry, and Specialty Crops
Fruit and nut trees in orchards have thrived with the addition of biochar blends, which promote uniform growth and higher yields. In agroforestry systems, biochar also supports intercropped plants by improving overall soil health. In 2017 we partnered with Bell’s Brewery on a demonstration plot to determine the impact of VITAL Blend on hop plant production.
We top-dressed the granular applications near the base of the plants and then used a backpack unit filled with the VITAL Blend 5M liquid to saturate the soil around other plants. Our granular and liquid soil amendments contain pure biochar and freshwater-sourced humates that promote healthy microbiomes and enhance the organic matter in soils.
At harvest time, it was very clear which plants received the soil amendments compared to the untreated hops. The treated hops plants were more robust; they had darker leaves and larger strobiles (flower heads). This is similar to what we are seeing in other crops, such as Blueberries, Green Peppers, Chestnuts and Potatoes.
3. Regenerative Farms
Farmers practicing regenerative agriculture have embraced charged biochar blends for their ability to improve soil carbon levels while reducing reliance on synthetic fertilizers. Trees planted as part of windbreaks or silvopasture systems have benefited from better soil structure and nutrient availability.
The practice of using on-farm inputs such as manure and compost does increase the organic matter in soil, but only over the short term. The carbon in compost or manure is “labile” or easily accessible to microbes. Incorporating biochar as part of the carbon ratio in compost or adding to manure greatly improves soil structure and water retention. Through rigorous experimentation, we have found fresh-water sourced humates to have the most reliable nutrient profile and the least likely to affect the soil pH levels.
The formulations of VITAL Blend granular and VITAL Blend 5M liquid are highly concentrated so the application rate is 20-60% less than other soil amendments containing biochar. This saves our regenerative farmers time and money.
Click here to find out more about our in-field trials and grower partnerships
Choosing the Right Charging Materials
Combining humates with biochar creates a powerful synergy for soil health and plant growth. Biochar’s porous structure holds nutrients, while humates improve nutrient solubility and uptake by plants. Humates are rich in humic and fulvic acids.
Humates enhance soil aeration, water retention, and microbial activity. The also have a high CEC (cation exchange capacity), allowing them to hold and release nutrients when plants need them. With humate/biochar blends the chance for leaching of nutrients is dramatically decreased.
Charging Biochar with Compost
Compost is readily available and often free if you do the labor or turning it and making sure it is correctly managed. Using compost is also part of a sustainable waste management program. Topping your compost pile with biochar traps gases like methane and ammonia during composting, reducing the environmental impact.
Some of the very characteristics of compost that make it desirable also make it not as effective as other organic inputs used to charge biochar. The nutrient profile of compost can vary dramatically depending on the feedstock, resulting in inconsistent results. It’s also time-intensive. For you and because composting takes time. If your compost ends up poorly managed, you may introduce into your tree soil weed seeds, pathogens, or heavy metals, all of which decrease the health of your planting.
Charing Biochar with Manure
Manure has many of the same pros and cons as compost. On the positive side, it is high in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium and these nutrients bind to the porous structure of the biochar. Regenerative or organic manure
has a diverse range of beneficial microbes that play a key role in nutrient cycling and soil health.
But as anyone who’s lived near a farm knows, manure smells and attracts flies. There is also the risk of pathogens and hormones, depending on where your manure is sourced. All manure, except rabbit, are “hot” which means it has to age for several months before it can be put on plants. You can burn your plants if you don’t let that manure with the biochar set so it’s time and space consuming.
Some types of manure, especially poultry manure, can have high salt levels. This can lead to soil salinity issues if not managed properly. Charging biochar with manure is a powerful way to enhance its effectiveness, but it requires careful management to avoid potential downsides.
The Benefits of Humate-Charged Biochar for Your Landscape
Many charged biochar blends use a combination of these materials, leveraging their strengths while minimizing their drawbacks. Manure and compost are generally beneficial for trees, but if not used properly they can cause harm to root systems.
Manure can be too rich in nitrogen and salts, burning the roots. It can also harbor pathogens that when introduced into the soil, could create an imbalance that affects soil health.
Compost, if not prepared properly can go anaerobic. When overly wet compost is added to a tree planting the roots can actually suffocate from lack of oxygen. The carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of compost can be out of balance. This often leads to nutrient deficiencies or imbalances.
To avoid these drawbacks, we only use freshwater-sourced humates to charge our biochar. Because the humates are freshwater we don’t have to worry about salinity issues. Find out more about what humates are and how they benefit your soil here.
Humates bind to biochar’s porous surface, increasing the soil’s ability to retain essential nutrients and making them more available to plants over time. The combination of humates and biochar enhances soil aeration and water-holding capacity. The humates also provide a food source for beneficial microbes while biochar offers a habitat, fostering a thriving microbial ecosystem.
By improve nutrient efficiency, humate-charged biochar can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers, supporting sustainable farming practices.
Whether you’re a homeowner nurturing backyard trees, a farmer planting shelterbelts, or an arborist managing urban canopies, biochar blends are a practical way to support soil vitality and sustainability. By adopting this approach, you can contribute to healthier trees and a healthier planet.
So why wait? Contact us to start a soil and tree health program with our VITAL Blend biochar granular and liquid blends today. Watch your trees—and the soil beneath them—thrive like never before.
