2023-12-27 19:15:53
In the Amazon, people have long relied on biochar to improve the fertility of their land. And researchers are beginning to understand how this astonishing product works. They confirm that it is good for the health of our soils.
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Biochar is a type of charcoal that forms when plant matter is burned in the absence of oxygen. Any kind of plant matter. And today, it is attracting the attention of researchers for two reasons in particular. The first is that it is capable of storing carbon.
Biochar, an effective waste to reduce our carbon footprint
The second is that, according to ancestral uses, it improves soil fertility.
Plant-soil interactions boosted by the presence of biochar
Researchers from Texas A&M University (United States) confirm this. They studied the effects of a biochar obtained from wheat crop residues on tomato growth, soil microbial diversity and plant root responses. And they show, in the magazine Frontiers in Analytical Sciencethat biochar improves interactions between the soil microbiome and plant roots.
Among the researchers’ interesting findings was that the treated soil microbiome showed increased functional activity in several beneficial microbes while reducing the activity of pathogenic fungi throughout the study. The symbiotic activity between the plant and the microbiome was also improved. Tomato plants and microbes were “able to communicate better and modulate their function — such as nitrogen metabolism — in the presence of biocharexplains Amit Dhingra, researcher at Texas A&M University, in a communiqué. This modulation is important, because we know that the nutritional needs of the plant change as the plant matures.”
Different biochars, different effects
Fruit yields, however, have not been measurably improved. The researchers therefore intend to continue their work to determine whether it is possible to optimize the application of biochar. Especially since there are many different biochars to which plants might react differently.
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