{"id":114,"date":"2011-12-19T17:23:23","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T00:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/?page_id=114"},"modified":"2011-12-20T13:08:59","modified_gmt":"2011-12-20T20:08:59","slug":"benefits","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/what-is-biochar\/benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Biochar is characterized as having high carbon content and being very stable. \u00a0The specific properties of biochar lend itself to several applications including improving soil fertility, filtering water in the soil, and storing carbon. \u00a0In fact, biochar is a carbon sequestration technology that is widely discussed as being one possible solution to the increasing levels of CO<sub>2<\/sub>.\u00a0 Unlike other charcoals biochar has higher carbon content and since it is an extremely stable material, biochar is able to \u201clock\u201d carbon in the soil for 100\u2019s to 1,000\u2019s of years. \u00a0Biochar could prove to be an invaluable resource in returning and storing carbon in the soil.<\/p>\n<p>When applied to soil, biochar has these specific benefits:<\/p>\n<p>Increased water holding capacity<br \/>\nIncreased soil pH<br \/>\nIncreased nutrient retention<br \/>\nPositive effect on soil microbes that aide in plant processes<br \/>\nIncreased crop production<br \/>\nDecrease in soil greenhouse gas emissions<\/p>\n<p>Many of these benefits lead to a reduction in irrigation and agri-chemical requirements. \u00a0This is largely due to the ability of biochar to absorb and hold onto compounds like water and fertilizers. \u00a0These same characteristics lend itself to other uses such as waste site clean-ups by absorbing harmful compounds and landfills to limit emissions of methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biochar is characterized as having high carbon content and being very stable. \u00a0The specific properties of biochar lend itself to several applications including improving soil fertility, filtering water in the soil, and storing carbon. \u00a0In fact, biochar is a carbon &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/what-is-biochar\/benefits\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10232,"featured_media":0,"parent":90,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-114","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/114\/revisions\/141"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/90"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/biochar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}