Descriptions

Sustainable food production, groundwater availability, and ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change depends to a significant extent on soil health, and more specifically, on soil organic carbon (SOC) content.

Commonly used approaches to improve SOC like, use of cover crops, rotations, fast-growing legumes, incorporation of crop straw and organic manure, introduction of nitrogen-fixing trees, and reduced tillage require longer duration to show impact. Alternative to above approaches, biochar application is demonstrating potential to enhance carbon sequestration, soil productivity, carbon stabilization, and to reduce CO2 emissions compared to raw amendments of organic wastes and plant resides. CO2 emissions from biochar applied soils is found to be three-fold lower than those treated with raw residues.

This project evaluates production, application, and effect of biochar on soil health and food production; develops scalable models for sustainable production of biochar using diverse feedstocks obtained from agroforestry systems; and develops scalable market linkages to mainstream biochar use for a climate resilient and productive soil management.