Apart from sunlight, plants require water and nutrients to thrive. This means that your soil's water and nutrient holding capacity is crucial to the growth of your plants, vegetables, trees, and grass.
Soils can hold a certain amount of water and nutrients based on their structure and composition. When soil is saturated, any additional water or nutrients simply flow out to sewers or watersheds.
Biochar has an incredibly porous structure which allows it to act like a sponge. Its large surface area creates surfaces nutrients can “stick” to which prevents them from flowing through the soil. Just a 10% concentration of biochar in soil stores 30% more water and 40% more nutrients.
In this higher quality soil plants can develop deeper and more robust roots. This improves resistance to stressors such as drought, heat, chemical imbalances and over-cutting.
Along with the deeper roots, the increased water holding capacity will ensure plants have access to greater stores of water during a drought. In our tests, grass stayed green 150% longer with 15% biochar composition compared to soil without biochar.
Biochar's sponge like structure allows it to hold onto up to 30% more Nitrogen (N), Phosphorous (P) and Potassium (K). This increases the longterm availability of nutrients to plants and reduces harmful leaching into lakes and rivers.
