EFFECT OF BIOCHAR ON HORTICULTURE IN URBAN CONTEXT

Abstract

The increasing world and urban population resulted in reducing agricultural lands to feed the increasing food demand. This strain on food supplies is further aggravated by the reducing quality crop yields due to climate change. Urban Agriculture can be a solution to the reducing agricultural lands, however, the problem with reducing crop yields persists. The usage of biochar along with Urban Agriculture to solve the problem of reducing crop yields without contributing to global warming is suggested. With the previous successful case of the ‘terra preta do indio’, this research will be looking into the application of biochar as a form of soil amendment in the urban settings. To correspond to the Urban Agriculture context, experiments were done in residential flats and commonly consumed horticultures were grown. Two sets of four-staged research were designed to evaluate the suitability and effectiveness of CO2 dosed and un-dosed biochar on the cultivation of horticultures. The first set of experiment utilised water hyacinth, a pest plant, as the feedstock and pyrolysis at 400°C as the production technology. Commonly consumed Mung beans were used as the crop for this experiment. The second set of experiment were carried out with California wood chips as the biomass and gasification at 1100°C as the production technology. Lettuce, a popular household vegetable was cultivated under this experiment. The findings of this research concluded that the un-dosed biochar was the most effective in cultivating lettuce under 1:2 biochar to soil ratio.