Biochar for Sustainable Agriculture: Nutrient Dynamics, Soil Enzymes, and Crop Growth

Abstract

11.1 INTRODUCTION With the increasing demands of the ever-changing global population, a pragmatic approach to viable agricultural practices has become necessary. Sustainable agriculture (SA) is an area of growing interest as it focuses on plausible means to produce crops in an environmentally friendly, socially fair, and economically beneficial manner that can be sustained long term (Hester and Harrison, 2005). Implementation of biochar amendment in agriculture serves to enrich the sustainability of soils in numerous ways. Biochar has the ability to act as a reservoir of macro- and micronutrients. It can also act as a short-term source of highly available nutrients instigating an acceleration of nutrient cycling processes long term (DeLuca et al., 2015). Nutrient dynamics are influenced by altering physiochemical properties and microbial community composition of the soil. Biochar has become a more cost-effective alternative for commercially available, slow-release nutrient sources such as coated- and nanofertilizers. In addition, the long-term stability of biochar in soil avoids the need for multiple periodic applications (Laird et al., 2010b; Novak et al., 2009).

From the perspective of community, creating and applying an organic-based amendment such as biochar can be easily taught to farmers. Any toxic effects that can result as a consequence are minimized by enabling the delivery of high-quality foods to the public (Atkinson et al., 2010). Environmentally friendly effects result from biochar use in place of artificial amendments as it prevents nutrient leaching from soil. If leached into water ways, it can eventually lead to eutrophication (Laird et al., 2010a). The biochar production itself is a carbon-negative process, sequestering the carbon present in waste biomass that would otherwise have being released back into the atmosphere (Lehmann and Joseph, 2015). This chapter focuses on how biochar benefits two key aspects of a soil ecosystem— nutrient dynamics and soil enzyme dynamics—that show how biochar can play a key role in sustainable agricultural practices (Lehmann et al., 2011; Rillig and Thies, 2012).