Observation:
Just to see the effects of biochar on plants in my own garden I planted peas in
two pots. The pots doubled as weights for the barbeque cover. Accidentally the
pots were covered with the cover and were thus deprived of light for a while. I
can only assume that the pots were covered for the same amount of time since it
happened by accident and I wasn’t there doing measurements. However, when I
uncovered the already germinated peas this was the result:
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Left:
biochar amended soil (1/5), Right: control. Plant: Pisum sp.
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Hypothesis:
There could be a number of reasons for this phenomenon but I can narrow them
down to the two most likely:
1. Biochar has speeded the growth of
the pea making it thicker and thus more resistance to cover (the cover was
quite heavy ~thin raincoat) Also if you look closely at the pictures the one
grown in biochar is thicker and has a little greener leaves.
2. Biochar helps the pea recover more
easily from stress. Senescent leaves are absent from the pea grown in biochar.
Future prospects: Whatever
the exact reason I plan to make further experiments where I include more
samples and have some plants covered by pressing down the stalks and some where
I only deprive the plants of light for a period. Stay tuned for more.
