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: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.