QUADRAT DTP: ’Killing two challenges with one biochar’: biological enrichment of biochar to increase sustainability and food security

Climate change and food security are two major challenges for the sustainable development of our societies. Never before have greenhouse gas emissions been higher and the increasing demand for food has taken our food system to the brink of a collapse. Actions to increase agricultural yield have not only failed to meet food demands but also increased the emissions of greenhouse gases, for example, through emissions of nitrous oxide associated with fertiliser use, and carbon dioxide due to land use change. Innovation is therefore urgently needed.

In this context, ’biochar’ emerges as an option with unique potential to resolve both climate change and food security challenges. Biochar applied to soil has two main functions: (1) to sequester carbon, thereby mitigating large scale global climate change and (2) to hold plant available nutrients, increasing soil productivity and agriculture yields.

Biochar is produced by burning plant material (’biomass’) at high temperatures and in the absence of oxygen (’pyrolysis’), from which ~20% of the final yield is biochar that can be applied to soils. However, while carbon is retained during pyrolysis, nitrogen is almost completely lost. Yet, nitrogen is one of the most important soil additives for agriculture and a limiting nutrient in crop growth. How can we safely and sustainably produce nitrogen-enriched biochar to benefit crop production?

Aims and Objectives: This project addresses this gap with an innovative approach to producing a nitrogen-enriched biochar product. Biochar production will be augmented with nitrogen from a biological agent ’the black soldier fly larvae’ that speeds up release of nitrogen from the organic matter before pyrolysis. This released nitrogen will be stored and re-introduced into biochar after pyrolysis to enrich the final product.

Key questions which will guide this project are:
1) Are black soldier fly larvae an effective biological agent for biochar enrichment and how is nitrogen incorporated and retained in the biochar?
2) Are there food security risks associated with biochar enrichment using insect products (e.g. introduction of pathogens or toxins into the soil)?
3) When used as a soil amendment, does the enriched biochar result in higher crop yields and is this practice economically sustainable?

To answer these questions, the project combines economic models, analytical characterisation of nutrients in biochar, and crop yield experiments to provide a holistic perspective on this innovative approach. The overarching aim of this project is to produce a nitrogen-enriched biochar using insects as the biological agents of the process in a safe, sustainable, and profitable manner.

Training and development: The project will use a wide range of techniques to produce new data and to analyse existing data from the literature. The candidate will have the opportunity to gain expertise in modelling, insect husbandry and large-scale insect production, small-scale crop production, and analytical chemistry of soil, larvae and nutrients in biochar. The candidate will also receive training in the additional areas of experimental design, data analysis, literature review, meta-analysis and science communication.

More project details are available here: https://www.quadrat.ac.uk/projects/killing-two-challenges-with-one-biochar-biological-enrichment-of-biochar-to-increase-sustainability-and-food-security/

How to apply: https://www.quadrat.ac.uk/how-to-apply/