Biochar helps cut manure emissions

Jan 19, 2023

Researchers find that adding charcoal-like carbon and ash to composting manure can reduce odours as well as methane

Researchers have found that adding a small amount of biochar during the composting process for manure from dairy cattle can cut methane emissions by 84 percent.

Minimizing the greenhouse gases behind climate change is sometimes seen as a problem that requires expensive high-tech solutions, said Gerardo Diaz, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Merced.

“And if this can (instead) be done with materials that are already available, are cheap to make and in a certain way, you’re using waste — that is, the biomass — then, why not? It’s kind of like a no brainer.”

Biochar is the charcoal-like carbon and ash left over when biomasses such as crop residues are heated using pyrolysis under conditions of low oxygen. A study by researchers at the university found that adding as little as six percent biochar to dairy manure resulted in an 84 percent reduction of methane during composting.

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Video: How American Farmers Harvest 1.15 Billion Pounds of Sunflowers

Across the open plains of North Dakota and South Dakota, sunflower fields turn the American landscape into a sea of gold. In this farming documentary, we go inside modern sunflower farming to see how farmers plant, grow, harvest, clean, dry, process, and transform sunflower seeds into valuable products used every day.

In 2024, American farmers harvested about 1.15 billion pounds of sunflowers. This video follows the full journey from warm spring planting to combine harvesting, seed cleaning, storage, oil extraction, refining, roasting, packaging, and animal feed production.

You will see how sunflower seeds are processed into cooking oil, roasted snacks, bakery ingredients, birdseed, livestock feed, and useful byproducts. From golden fields to modern processing plants, this is the story of how a beautiful flower becomes one of America’s important oilseed crops.

Watch until the end to discover how sunflower farming connects farmers, machines, factories, food production, and sustainable agriculture.