Char Chit Chat

Char Chit Chat
Podcast Description
Char Chit Chat is created by Dylan Graves and explores char in New Zealand and beyond. The podcast aims to interview a range of people involved in biochar, activated charcoal, carbon anodes, and so on. The main subject will tend to be biochar as that is most accessible and scales from individuals making char in their woodstove over the winter to large industrial pyrolysis units outputting several tonnes per day. Biochar is also a great soil conditioner and improver and so is relevant to gardeners and famers alike.
An introduction and overview of Biochar: https://www.sces.org.nz/biochar
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast primarily focuses on biochar and its broad uses, ranging from home production methods to large-scale industrial applications. Episodes such as the one featuring Dennis Enright delve into sustainable agricultural practices and the significant role biochar can play in enhancing soil quality. Other episodes, like the one with Phil Stevens, explore innovative use cases for biochar, including its potential in environmental decontamination and discussions on making biochar more widely adopted.

Char Chit Chat is created by Dylan Graves and explores char in New Zealand and beyond. The podcast aims to interview a range of people involved in biochar, activated charcoal, carbon anodes, and so on. The main subject will tend to be biochar as that is most accessible and scales from individuals making char in their woodstove over the winter to large industrial pyrolysis units outputting several tonnes per day. Biochar is also a great soil conditioner and improver and so is relevant to gardeners and famers alike.
An introduction and overview of Biochar: https://www.sces.org.nz/biochar
Episode 14 featured Cameron who lives on a lifestyle block near Pukekohe in the Auckland region of New Zealand.
I liked Cameron's answer to what is biochar: ”I like the coral reef analogy – I think it's something people understand. They have a strong visual image of what a coral reef is… and full of life, a structure, a habitat…”
Cameron is super passionate about biochar because of the results he gets after adding it to his growing areas.
We talk about the practicalities of making biochar and how his methods have adapted over time to suit his context. Retorts at community gardens, TLUDs for corn cobs, pits for home biomass, to old dairy vat for prunings and sawmill waste…
We also talk about feeding biochar to various animals and using it successfully in a deep litter sytem for chickens.
We hear about Cameron's optimism for making serious inroads into predator control with the confluence of intelligent, resetting, and dynamic traps that hopefully will become low cost enough to be deployed throughout all of New Zealand.
The chat gets into permaculture near the end and you can also read more on Cameron's blog: https://onionroadfarm.com/ including some posts about biochar :)
An introduction and overview of Biochar: https://www.sces.org.nz/biocharThe national biochar association in NZ: https://biochar.net.nz/ (BNNZ)https://freesound.org/people/joshuaempyre/sounds/250749/

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