I was in a business meeting this week with a couple of “green” business people, like me.  Green meaning geared toward sustainable methods of doing business, or in today’s world, business methods geared toward reducing the carbon footprint.  A few cool things came up.  A great water filtration system originally used by NASA but now available for homes and pools was discussed that eliminated the need for bottled water (www.ecocaresolutions.com ).  We talked about the carbon footprint of a single bottle of water, from harvesting to purifying to bottling to shipping to the warehouse, then shipping to the consumer.  Mind-boggling when you think about the amount of work, fuel and carbon emissions for a bottle of water.  Also discussed was the recently introduced Bloombox (www.bloomenergy.com ), which has great potential for solving some of our planets’ energy needs.

Some of the plant care tools we like to use to reduce carbon footprint are methods to add carbon back into the soil.  We encourage mulching grass clippings for one (which has many other benefits); allowing leaf litter to act as a mulch on the property instead of collecting and carting off site; adding compost, mulch (and other products high in carbon) into the soil.

A somewhat newer technology to add carbon into the soil is a product called BIO-CHAR.  This BIO-CHAR is the by-product of pyrolysis, a carbon negative source of energy production.  The amazing thing about this material is the amount of time this form of organic matter will stay in the soil, potentially hundreds of years.  Compared to compost and mulch, which are generally in the soil closer to 5 years before they are for the most part broken down.  As with most new technologies, availability and affordability are hurdles, but integrating the product into soil care even in low amounts can have many positives.  Just like other high carbon soil amendments, this material can be treated with beneficial soil organisms and become part of a highly productive matrix of soil that can keep your plants healthy without chemical inputs.  The process that makes the BIO-CHAR produces little or no carbon emissions, and yields this high carbon material that can be used to improve soil quality.  As wonderful as composting and mulching are (and I would encourage as many people as possible to promote the prudent use of high quality compost and mulch) there are still carbon dioxide emissions from both.  A friend of mine says “I love technology when it works”.  I’m always on the lookout for new technologies that work for plants and soils.

Paul Wagner – The Soil Geek