The Soil Biochar Loading Capacity—the Soil Is the Limit
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 May 2018)
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Biochar has become highly popular as a soil amendment over the last decade. Its manifold claimed benefits range from enhancing crop yields to increasing soil water retention, combating climate change and mitigating the impacts of diseases. However, negative environmental and agronomic and ecological impacts have also been reported. Within the 4/1000 initiative, biochar may be one of a range of innovative technologies to increase the organic C saturation level of soils. However, where this organic C saturation level stands is not well known for different soil/climate combinations, nor is the application strategy that should be used to maximise opportunities if it can be reached sustainably.
There is a wide disparity in the application rates used for biochar application to soil in the literature. And there is increasing evidence that biochar impacts often show diminishing returns with increasing application rate, to the point of negative impacts at high rates. Repeated applications of small amounts may have different outcomes for the sustainable biochar loading capacity than one-off large applications.
Here, we aim to present a number of papers that explore the concept of the biochar loading capacity of soils to aid effective guidance of policy in this regard. We welcome manuscripts that explore how the biochar loading capacity can be determined in studies at various scales and methodologies, including experimental and modelling, conceptual and numerical.
Dr. Simon Jeffery
Dr. Frank Verheijen
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- biochar
- soil functions
- application rate
- environmental impacts…
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