TRAVERSE CITY — It’s no secret that part of northern Michigan’s charm is its fields and farms, which are as picturesque as its lakes. This agriculture industry has long been a part of the economy and community in the region — evident in all aspects, from wine, to cherries, to vegetables.
But Bob LaPorte says the soil could be better for the use of biochar, a carbon-rich substance added to soil to increase soil fertility and enrich the environment for beneficial microorganisms.
He said archaeologists point to its use 8,000 years ago by Indigenous people in the Amazon River Basin to let the soil hold more water and nutrients.
“You’d really think we would have figured this out by now, but our agricultural system is so centered around the chemicals of fertilizer, pesticide, insecticide,” said LaPorte. “This is so important that we get that straight now because our soil and our food system is at a very high risk of falling apart.”
According to Michigan State University Extension, biochar is created by heating biomass, like jackpine wood, switchgrass or poultry litter, at high temperatures in chambers that have little to no oxygen. After pyrolysis, the char, in pellet and dust form, can be incorporated or broadcast on fields at a rate of about 2-22 tons per acre per year, for $80- to $1,000 per ton.
LaPorte said he hopes this could cut back on materials thrown in landfills that could benefit agriculture in this way.
“Because almost everything from climate change is because we’ve made a wasteful civilization,” LaPorte said. “We’ve wasted so much. We’ve really done a lot of damage.”
But these Amazonian farm practices present an opportunity for hope, said longtime soil scientist Tim Overdier.
“Biochar overall is a tool in the toolkit of soil building and agriculture that we’ve overlooked — and we need some hopeful things for the future,” Overdier said. “I think this is one of them.”
Overdier lists the ways in which biochar could be favorable to the agricultural climate of northern Michigan.
“The USDA says that each soil has a potential and a limitation. These soils have great potential, because of the climate, for growing wine grapes. You know, Christmas trees, cherries, apples and everything,” Overdier said. “But the limitation is that they’re so sandy. They don’t hold a lot of water. They’re subject to drought in August. And they don’t hold a lot of organic matter. In fact, the organic matter is like 1- or 2 percent.”
Biochar could bring that number up to 3- to 5 percent, Overdier said.
“There’s a potential to put carbon into these soils where they would hold more water, more nutrients. It would be a tremendous benefit for agriculture here. Everything from the productivity to the terroir of the wines and so forth. And all that is yet to be developed.”
Following the Biochar Research Network Act of 2023, there’s been a notable climb in activities and initiatives related to biochar.
For the past few years, LaPorte and Overdier have run a workshop in Leelanau County called CROWD, or Composting Recycling and Organic Waste Diversion, which hosts meetings to work on related efforts in the community.
With the 2023 legislation, the scope of agriculture technology seemed to change overnight in the direction of biochar, which came with great satisfaction to the pair, given the years they’d already dedicated to education and research.
According to LaPorte, Northwestern Michigan College is in the beginning stages of getting students working with biochar at the MSU Extension Agricultural Experimental Research Station in Leelanau County.
As far as applying it to a greater area, an initiative is currently in the works. The tri-county area of Leelanau, Benzie and Grand Traverse will be working openly with citizens to move forward in creating a blueprint for biochar efforts that could move statewide, if proven successful, LaPorte said. He hopes Grand Traverse region will be chosen as one of a group of federally funded locales for biochar projects.
“There’s going to be three counties working together in collaboration so that they don’t have to go back and reinvent the wheel for every county. Now, why is that important? Because if we are going to do anything like compost on a big scale, the county needs to know what those rules are. They have to know what the correct processes are. And it’s really important that we get this right,” LaPorte said.
“You want to have a biochar project big enough so that all of your people in the county, all your farmers know they can go there and learn about it.”