Hi from Malaysia,

At last I've found a group actively discussing biochar in this part of the world. My interested in this subject led me to attend the 1st Asia-Pacific biochar conference (Australia-May). I came back full of ideas about getting biochar activity going in Malaysia & SEA. I am not a farmer but my roots are firmly bedded in the soils of the Waikato in NZ.

My background in engineering initially sparked my interest in pyrolysis, but I've been burying my nose deep in dirt as well (from the safety of my keyboard!).

I believe that biochar will grow into a major industry - and that this will be accelerated by future acceptance as a carbon sequestration tool. This is currently a hot topic on biochar discussion lists.

I've been researching regional activity on the subject. I think much more could be done. I realise that you guys are out there getting your hands dirty. I would guess that some of you are interested in experimenting with biochar in your soils. Your positive or negative biochar feed-back from the fields will be of great interest to others around the world.

Also needed are research and field trials leading to published papers and there is not much of this going on. This will require collaborations between farmers, researchers (universities?) and sponsors (NGO's, GO's). There are a number of aid and research groups active in the region, that have been involved in soil carbon research or have expressed interest in biochar (JICA, CGIAR-IRRI, APN, ACIAR, FAO-RAP). Given some support from these organisations, I hope that a new regional biochar interest group can lead to further research on the performance of biochar in local conditions.

So... any suggestions for getting IBI structured field trials (...biochar-international.org/extension) under way in Thailand?

Which Thai universities are likely to be interested? You know any researchers?

Will govt agencies need to or want to be involved?

Kind regards,

Trevor Richards

FarEastBiochar

[email protected]

....sea-biochar.blogspot.com

....groups.google.com/group/biochar-malaysia

Yesterday we found our local charcoal maker and bought 2 large bags, we also dug up 5 bags of the 'waste' full of black dirt, charcoal bits and dust etc and plan to put this into the vege patch.....hope it works the same as when you burn stubble and rubbish etc and increases the growth of anything nearby it.