Bamboo Charcoal Fertilizer

The farmers in my area have just recently planted green vegetables in their perfectly manicured plots. I went to have a look the other day and noticed one plot with flecks of black mixed in with the soil. Could this be what I thought it was?

When I next meet my Japanese girlfriend, she couldn’t say either way if farmers used bamboo charcoal as a fertilizer or natural pesticide. She asked her parents and her father who works in a factory making engine parts thought that it might be. I live in Shizuoka prefecture and this area is famous for its green tea. Sometimes bamboo charcoal is used as a fertilizer for green tea.

I went on the internet and discovered my girlfriend’s father was indeed right. Bamboo charcoal is being used as an organic fertilizer for green tea. Thin flecks are mixed in with the soil. Tokai University has done some research into the topic. I found the research paper translated into English (see the source below).

They started the experiment in 1998 and the paper was written in 2001. 8 plots were taken for the experiment. They used 1 control plot with no fertilizer and used differing amounts of crushed bamboo charcoal in the other plots.

The bamboo charcoal was found to keep the soil at a constant PH suitable for green tea cultivation. It was discovered that the plot that had 100g of crushed bamboo charcoal per square meter per year produced tea tree bushes that were 20% taller and 40% more voluminous than the control plot with no bamboo charcoal fertilizer.

That’s great news considering the problems facing mankind with feeding growing populations while at the same time using farming techniques that won’t poison the soil for later generations.

Source: Tokai University