Using biochar to improve soil properties and water retention in the landscape

Biochar is the product of the decomposition of biomass due to sufficiently high temperatures with little or no air access. Its addition can improve soil properties in several ways. For example, due to its porosity, it increases the soil's ability to retain moisture and at the same time aerate. Along with water, it also retains the nutrients dissolved in it. It can also bind minerals chemically, forming c omplexes similar to those that form humus. Its vast internal surface provides a substrate for rich microbial colonisation of the soil. Finally, biochar itself contains all the nutrients that the original biomass contained. Its application can not only greatly improve soil properties, but also safely store vast amounts of carbon previously captured from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. This can become one of the measures to reduce the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere.