Unearthing the past

The forgotten history of biochar

Guy Shrubsole, November 2010

Charcoal burners, 19th century

Black is the new green. At least, it is when you’re talking about biochar – the
technology that has in recent years generated much heated debate amongst
environmentalists, agricultural experts and cleantech financiers across the world.
Credited with not only being an effective form of carbon sequestration, but also an
efficient fertiliser, biochar is being heralded as a win-win solution to the 21st century
problems of food security and climate change.

But it would be a mistake to see biochar as a new idea. In fact, it has a long and
fascinating history – one that is only now coming to light. Far from being a modern
technology, it would seem that we are simply rediscovering an old agricultural
tradition that has been practised in Europe, Asia and the Americas for centuries.

Let’s start with the basics. Biochar is biomass that’s been charred – or pyrolysed – in
anaerobic conditions. This process produces a highly stable form of carbon – one
that can last intact for hundreds and possibly thousands of years – hence removing
carbon from the biological carbon cycle and helping to abate global warming. But it
doesn’t stop there. Increasing numbers of studies are showing that biochar has a
beneficial effect when applied to agricultural soils – raising crop yields by absorbing
excess nitrogen in the soil and re-releasing it gradually, at a rate at which plants can
more easily absorb it. Other recent experiments have shown that biochar can help
soils retain moisture, encourage necessary microbial activity and remediate
contamination with heavy metals.1

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Another triumph of modern science, you might think. Except that none of this is very
new. Farmers, gardeners and horticulturalists all suspected as much at least a
century and a half ago. Their testimonies have been forgotten, their experiments ill-
documented – but enough evidence survives from old almanacs and gardeners’
dictionaries to prove that the Victorians had chanced upon biochar long before the
concept of global warming had even been thought of. Amongst indigenous peoples in
the Amazon, the Congo and New Zealand, knowledge of biochar dates back even
further. Much has been said elsewhere about the fertile terra preta soils that cover
large areas of the Amazon basin – a key part of which is charred biomass – and
which have been conclusively proven to be the work of a pre-Columbian civilisation2.
By contrast, almost nothing has been written about the historical usage of biochar by
European farmers and horticulturalists in Britain, the United States, and the
Antipodes3.

Part of the reason for this oversight lies in changing terminology. What we today call
‘biochar’ is in fact a recently-invented term for a very old material – charcoal. The
neologism was coined by a New Zealand professor, Peter Read, to emphasize the
biological element of biochar and remove the negative (and inaccurate) connotations
of the suffix ‘coal’.4 Whilst more accurate, the new name has perhaps caused
researchers to overlook previous research into the properties of charcoal. Are we in
danger of reinventing the wheel?

We can be sure that Victorian gardeners would have had no interest in developing
carbon sequestration technologies, but they were certainly keen on any technique
that improved the yield of their rhododendrons. Lo and behold, opening the pages of
an 1877 gardening manual, Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dictionary, we find the following
entry under Charcoal: “Charcoal is a most efficient manure to all cultivated plants,
especially to those under glass. Heaths, rhododendrons, cucumbers, onions, roses,
orchidaceous plants, hydrangeas, camellias, melons, and pineapples, have been the
subject of extensive and most successful experiments”. The author, a Mr George W
Johnson, concludes effusively: “We think no cultivated plant would be unbenefitted
by having charcoal applied to the soil in which it is rooted.”5

In The Gardener’s Assistant: Practical and Scientific (1878), the editor, Robert
Thompson, states plainly: “Charcoal forms a valuable auxiliary to manures, and even
when applied to the soil without the admixture of manuring substances it has great
fertilising properties.”6 This assertion is expanded upon in later editions of the same
work, this time edited by one William Watson: “Charcoal forms an excellent mixture
with guano and other artificial manures, in order to secure their more even
distribution.”7 George Nicholson, curator of Kew Botanic Gardens between 1886 and
1901, wrote much the same in a work from the turn of the century, advising
gardeners that “...as a manure, Charcoal is of especial value. It may be mixed, either

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crushed or in lumps, with the soil of pot plants, in the proportion of one part
Charcoal to sixteen parts of earth...”8

Such advice was being distributed at an even earlier date across the Atlantic. In
correspondence carried out in 1851 through the American farming almanac The
Plough, the Loom and the Anvil, two farmers trade observations about the value of
charcoal in raising crop yields. “We have the evidence upon almost every farm in the
county in which I live, of the effect of charcoal dust in increasing and quickening
vegetation”, opines one, a Mr William Trimble of Ohio, the President of the state’s
Highland Agricultural Society; “The spots where charcoal pits were burned 20, and
some say even 30 years since, still produce better corn, wheat, oats, vegetable or
grass, than the adjoining lands.” His correspondent, Colonel Marshall P Wilder of
Boston, agrees: “I have yet to see the first instance where charcoal formed a part of
the compost, that vegetation did not grow luxuriantly, producing the increasing and
quickening effects described by Mr Trimble.”9

Other early biochar enthusiasts were not satisfied with anecdotal evidence,
developing theories for why charcoal appeared so beneficial. Whilst some of the
explanations given by these nineteenth century horticulturalists are dubious, even
plain wrong, others concur precisely with the conclusions of recent biochar
research. Several of the sources recognised the unique absorptive properties of
charcoal, a characteristic long exploited for the filtering of impurities from air and
water, but only more recently investigated in relation to soils. A 2008 summary of
biochar’s properties notes that “biochar may have the potential to reduce leaching of
pollutants from agricultural soils... This possibility is suggested by the strong
adsorption affinity of biochar for soluble nutrients such as ammonium, nitrate,
phosphate, and other ionic solutes”.10 William Watson was coming to the same
conclusions a century earlier: “[charcoal’s] action ... is almost entirely due to its
well-known property of absorbing ammonia, carbonic acid [carbon dioxide], and
other gases, and again giving up these substances for the nourishment of plants.”11
The 1925 edition of Watson’s book adds: “From its power of absorption, [charcoal]
prevents the escape of the ammonia when more of this is liberated than can at once
be absorbed by the soil, or by the roots of plants.”12 Kew Gardens’ curator George
Nicholson wrote in 1901 that “The powers of Charcoal in absorbing effluvia and the
greater number of gases and vapours is well known, and as a filter Charcoal has
long been used to deprive water of its numerous organic impurities. ... [with regard
to its agricultural application, charcoal] has the property of absorbing carbonic acid
and other gases, yielding these up to plants as required for nourishment.”13

Not all proponents of charcoal possessed such a prescient understanding of the

science, and clearly gardening almanacs could contain ‘quack cures’ as well as
sound advice. Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dictionary, for instance, got it plain wrong when
he stated that “Sennebier, Ruckert, Sausure, and others, have demonstrated that

  ©Guy Shrubsole 2010 
 
plants are rendered much more luxuriant and productive by having carbonic acid
applied to their roots”14. This is not backed up by modern scientific inquiry. But
others understood that the inert carbon contained in charcoal was not in itself
useful; William Watson (1907), for example, was adamant that “as far as the carbon
of the charcoal is concerned, that yields no foods to plants.”15

Could it be that other soluble nutrients contained in charcoal were responsible for
these Victorian gardeners believing it to be a fabulous soil supplement? It’s possible,
and several sources acknowledge this. Various authors make separate reference to
the fertilising benefits of wood ashes (M. James, The Complete Guide to Home
Gardening, c1940: “Ashes from the bonfire contain a proportion of potash, and for
this reason are useful”16), and soot (Watson 1925, “its efficiency as a manure is
largely attributable to its containing ammonia”)17. But it’s clear that the authors
discussed here were recommending charcoal for something else – its unique porous
structure and associated properties.

It seems likely that most gardeners wouldn’t have troubled to investigate the matter
much further: after all, if something works well, why question it? But in fact several
horticulturalists did go further, setting up experiments to test charcoal’s properties
more objectively. Colonel Wilder of Boston (writing in 1851) describes one such trial
in some detail, undertaken by a Mr Hayward of Sandusky, Ohio, which is worth
reproducing here in full. “The facts I think were substantially as follows: Mr H having
prepared his coal [charcoal] by grinding in a mill, set apart seven lots of land for
experiments, the soil and cultivation being precisely alike on each, except as it
regarded the application of charcoal. The result was, that on the lots where fifty
bushels of coal were applied, there were twenty-five bushels of wheat obtained,
while on those lots where there was no coal applied the crop was only five or six
bushels. It will be borne in mind that there was no other manure administered to the
crop, and that consequently the fertilising properties must have been imparted by
the ammonia which was stored up in the coal.” The Colonel added: “This experiment
was very satisfactory, but not more so than many others which we have witnessed,
particularly in the application of charcoal to fruit trees, plants and garden
vegetables.”18 A later example is Retan (1915), who conducted nursery experiments
investigating the effects of charcoal on seedling growth19.

***

After World War One, horticultural interest in charcoal appears to have faded.
Gardening manuals continued to refer occasionally to charcoal’s ability to “keep soil
sweet” – meaning that it absorbed moisture and prevented a pungent, ‘sour’ soil
from developing – and recommended its use when growing orchids in jars20. But few
authors spoke any longer of its fertilising benefits. There is no real mystery in this. In
1913, the Haber-Bosch process for the artificial production of nitrates was perfected,

  ©Guy Shrubsole 2010 
 
ushering in a new age of chemical fertilisers21. Suddenly, agriculturalists no longer
had to worry about conserving valuable stocks of nitrogen in their soils: it could be
easily replaced through a good dose of N,P,K. Though artificial nitrate usage did not
really take off until after World War Two, it is unsurprising that gardeners and
farmers were no longer very interested in using charcoal to retain soil nitrogen,
when dousing their crops with increasingly cheap artificial nitrates was much easier.

Yet history moves in cycles. The early organic movement – which emerged in Britain
in the 1930s as a reaction against chemical fertilisers and industrial agriculture –
revived interest in biochar. The key figure in its rediscovery was an expatriate
Austrian chemist, Siegfried Marian, who fled the rise of the Nazis to take up
residence in Britain22. Marian had specialised in charcoal research in Germany,
principally for use in gas mask filters (an area that, unlike charcoal for agronomic
usage, had received considerable attention since the advent of gas warfare during
World War One). Such was Marian’s expertise in this field that, after the outbreak of
World War Two, the British Government gave him responsibility for overseeing all
UK charcoal production. As a result, Marian set up base in Fingle Bridge, on the
edge of Dartmoor in Devon, where he produced charcoal from the scrub oak
woodlands leased to him by the Dartington Hall Trust, and began experimenting with
its use in soils. After the War, Marian’s ideas crystallised; he began to publish his
research, established a periodical, Soil Magazine, to promote his work, and started
marketing the charcoal products he was producing. The wartime charcoal factory
became “a rural industry producing peats and composts and later, Actumus and
related substances… Cloud Charcoal – a medical product, Exogen – a biological
extract of oak, Formone – for conversion of hardwood”23, and other products.

But whilst Marian’s medicinal charcoals brought him some attention, it was its
agricultural application that truly fascinated him. “Its use in the right way offers in
my submission a complete refutation of the theories on which artificial manuring is
based”24, he argued. Amongst charcoal’s beneficial properties were, he attested, “its
extremely high porosity and capilliarity”25, enabling it to retain moisture and re-
release it to plants. Marian was also convinced that the mineral content of charcoal
became soluble in the presence of soil humus, and therefore helped to fertilise soils.
Whether all his theories were correct is a moot point; certainly Marian’s writings
appear to blend scientific enquiry with a certain amount of New Age mysticism, such
as his entertaining a belief in a “life-force in coal”26. Besides this muck-and-mystery
mentality, which he shared with many other early organic advocates, Marian was
moved by a strong belief that modern civilisation was undermining its own
foundations through its destructive agricultural practices, and that ‘Actumus’ –
coupled with other organic precepts – could provide salvation: “It is not enough to
eke out our scanty store of the life principle with what we can save from the ruins.
Let us recover from once living mineralised matter [charcoal] the fertility that nature

  ©Guy Shrubsole 2010 
 
has imprisoned in it, and no longer will the world be haunted by threats of famine
and shadowed by disease.”27 When he died prematurely in 1952, his handful of
followers planted an oak and erected a plaque to his memory at Fingle Bridge, close
to where Marian carried out his experiments, bearing the legend28:

SIEGFRIED MARIAN, D.Sc.

th
Born in Austria 14 September, 1898
th
Died in London 17 April, 1952
TH
THIS OAK TREE WAS PLANTED ON 11 DECEMBER, 1952 BY HIS ADMIRERS AND SUPPORTERS IN
MEMORY OF HIS PIONEER DISCOVERIES IN SOIL SCIENCE
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his
lead also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. – Ps. I, v.3.

Marian remained a maverick even amongst the countercultural organic pioneers,

but he acquired a number of disciples, among them Aubrey and Jean Westlake, key
figures in the interwar Woodcraft movement. Jean Westlake recounted how her
father was inspired by Marian’s writings and trialled some of his Actumus product on
their vegetable garden. Unfortunately, whilst the Westlakes reported good results,
they appear not to have kept detailed records of their trial, so we can only guess at
the efficacy of Marian’s product.29 Lady Eve Balfour, founder of the Soil Association,
experimented with ‘Actumus’, and whilst she “kept an open mind on Marian’s
claims”, found, “like other experimenters… evidence that it did encourage
earthworms”.30

Few other English organic evangelists took an interest in charcoal, except for Maye
Bruce, who in her primer on composting wrote: “Charcoal possesses the faculty of
absorbing poisons and remaining itself unchanged; for this reason it is used in
medicine, science, and more and more in gardening. Its presence ensures the
sweetness of the compost heap, as it cleanses it from undesirable gases.”31

Simultaneously, in New Zealand, the popular gardening writer J W Matthews – who

was influenced by the organic movement – penned a paragraph on charcoal in his
New Zealand Garden Dictionary (first ed. 1941), which later became a bestseller,
going through multiple editions. “Very few gardeners appreciate the importance of
charcoal in the maintenance of soil fertility,” wrote Matthews. “Quite apart from its
role as a purifying agent (it has amazing powers of absorption of poisonous gases) is
it a valuable stabiliser. It can absorb up to 80 times its own bulk of ammonia and, in
the soil, retains it until made use of by plant life. That is why soot, which is largely
charcoal, has such a beneficial action. Charcoal, either in the form of soot or the
powdered wood char, when mixed in the soil or compost, prevents the escape of
valuable ammonia and holds it in store until it can be utilised by the roots of plants.
When applied to the soil with such organic materials as bonedust, blood and bone
manure, fish manure, or animal manure, charcoal greatly enhances their value”, he
concluded.32

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After 1950 worldwide interest in biochar fell off once again, with few gardening
manuals making any reference to charcoal, and then only to disparage its value. It
was not until the late 1990s that research began afresh, off the back of studies into
Amazonian terra preta, and newfound interest in carbon sequestration for tackling
climate change.33

***

Why has interest in charcoal, or biochar, waxed and waned over time? Clearly
scientific research does not operate in a vacuum, but is rather tied to overarching
socioeconomic imperatives. During the 19th and 20th centuries, charcoal as a
technology passed out of common usage, and hence out of popular understanding.
Charcoal-making as a profession was dying out even during the mid-Victorian
period, restricting its production to industrial and chemical manufacturers far-
removed from any agricultural setting. Gardening as a pastime grew in popularity as
the British middle class expanded during the 20th century; but with the advent of
smokeless domestic fuels, gas cookers, and electric heating from the 1920s
onwards, domestic recourse to charcoal use narrowed, making horticultural
experimentation with charcoal, soot and wood ashes less likely. Finally, as the era
of cheap artificial fertilisers dawned after 1913 – and particularly after 1945 – few
worried any longer with the need to conserve and stabilise soil nitrogen content,
being content instead to saturate gardens and farmland with agrichemicals.

This short historical overview may, I hope, aid our present understanding of biochar.
Whilst past anecdote can be no substitute for rigorous scientific experimentation, we
can draw some encouragement from the fact that our ancestors were already
trialling biochar long before it acquired the name. Neither Victorian gardeners nor
organic pioneers were concerned with using charcoal to combat climate change, but
when it came to improving soils, retaining nutrients and increasing crop yields, their
needs were the same as ours. It seems we are only now adding scientific credence to
their practical experiments, one hundred and fifty years down the line.

                                                             
Endnotes
1
See for example Dominic Woolf, Swansea University, Biochar as a soil amendment: a review of the
environmental implications, 2008; Peter Winsley, Biochar and bioenergy production for climate
change mitigation, New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry, NZ Science Review Vol 64 (1),
2007.
2
See for example Wim Soembroek, Amazon Soils: A Reconnaissance of the Soils of the
Brazilian Amazon Region, 1966; William I. Woods (ed), Amazonian Dark Earths: Wim Sombroek’s
Vision, Springer, 2009.
3
A short discussion of historical biochar use in the West is given in chapter 1 of Johannes Lehmann
(ed.), Biochar for Environmental Management, 2009, pp.3-4. However, the chapter mentions almost
none of the sources discussed in this paper.
4
For a discussion of the etymology of the word ‘biochar’, see this online forum, notably Peter Read’s
post: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/message/4052

  ©Guy Shrubsole 2010 
 
                                                                                                                                                                                             
5
George W Johnson, Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dictionary, 1877.
6
Robert Thompson (ed.), The Gardener’s Assistant: Practical and Scientific, 1878.
7
William Watson, The Gardener’s Assistant, 1925. Earlier editions also edited by Watson were issued
in 1900 and 1907.
8
George Nicholson (ed.), The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening: An Encyclopaedia of Horticulture,
1901. Various editions appeared between 1886 and 1901.
9
Trimble, W.H., ‘On charring wood’, The Plough, the Loom and the Anvil (American agricultural
almanac), 1851, vol 3, pp. 513-516; Col Marshall P Wilder’s reply is on p.625 of the same volume. The
almanac can be viewed online in its entireity on Google Books.
10
Dominic Woolf, Biochar as a soil amendment, 2008, p.22.
11
William Watson, The Gardener’s Assistant, 1907.
12
William Watson, The Gardener’s Assistant, 1925.
13
George Nicholson, Illustrated Dictionary, 1901.
14
George W Johnson, Johnson’s Gardeners’ Dictionary, 1877.
15
Watson, 1907.
16
M. James (FRHS), The Complete Guide to Home Gardening, c1940, p.533.
17
Watson, 1925. The nutrient content of soot and wood ashes are also discussed in the somewhat
more recent Handbook of Organic Fertilisers: their properties and uses, Association of British
Organic Fertilisers Ltd, 1954, pages 24-5 and 35.
18
Colonel Marshall P. Wilder in The Plough, the Loom and the Anvil (American agricultural almanac),
1851, vol 3, p.625.
19
Retan, G. A., Charcoal as a means of solving some nursery problems, Forestry Quarterly, vol 13,
pp25-30, 1915.
20
For example, in E.T. Ellis (FRHS, editor), The Garden – for Expert and Amateur, edited by E T Ellis,
no date (c.1939), p.184; Walter P Wright, The Wright Encyclopaedia of Gardening, 1933 (entry for
‘charcoal’); HH Thomas and Gordon Forsyth (eds.), The Popular Encyclopaedia of Gardening, no date
(c.1930s).
21
See for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process.
22
Very little has been written about Siegfried Marian. He is given brief attention in Philip Conford, The
Origins of the Organic Movement, 2001, pp.93-94; a chapter in Jean Westlake, Seventy years a-
growing, 2000, pp.112-119; and is referred to by Leonard Ridzon and Charles Walters,
The Carbon Connection, 1990. But apart from this, as Conford notes, his “contribution to the organic
movement seems now to have been almost completely forgotten.”
23
Jean Westlake, 70 Years A-Growing, 2001, p.112.
24
Siegfried Marian, ‘Charcoal as a fertiliser’, The Compost Society Magazine (New Zealand journal),
Jan-Feb 1950, Vol 9 No 1, p.11. The author holds a copy of the article.
25
Marian, ‘Charcoal’, 1950, p.12.
26
Siegfried Marian, ‘New Light on Soil Fertility’, The Compost Society Magazine (New Zealand
journal), July-August 1950, Vol 9 No 4, p.11.
27
Marian, ‘New Light’, 1950, p.15.
28
The plaque is referred to in Jean Westlake, 70 years a-growing, 2000, p.119. The author visited the
site of Marian’s base at Fingle Bridge in 2009 and found the plaque to be still there.
29
Jean Westlake, 70 Years A-Growing. On pp.120-23 Westlake relates a ‘Practical Actumus Gardening
Winter Work Programme’ that she undertook, but whilst she recommends the use of Actumus, no
mention is made of any results or trials.
30
Conford, The Origins of the Organic Movement, 2001, p.93.
31
Maye E Bruce, From Vegetable Waste to Fertile Soil: Quick Return Compost System, Faber & Faber,
1943, p.19.
32
J W and Barbara Matthews, The New Zealand Garden Dictionary, first edition 1941, p.44 (Later
copies were issued between 1943 - 1968). Strangely, JW Matthews makes no mention of charcoal in
his 1943 book Soil Fertility, which praised organic methods such as Sir Albert Howard’s Indore
Process for composting, whilst also arguing that chemical fertilisers remained necessary.
33
Interest post-1950 was first stimulated by Sombroek 1966 in his study of Amazonian Dark Earths,
whilst in the 1990s and 2000s biochar research was led by Johannes Lehmann, before becoming the
global, multi-disciplinary research effort that it is today.

  ©Guy Shrubsole 2010