{"title":"Biochar-enhanced soilless farming: a sustainable solution for modern agriculture","authors":"Ankita Chopra, Prakash Rao, Om Prakash","doi":"10.1007/s11027-024-10167-9","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Current agricultural practices face significant challenges, including depleting arable land, water scarcity, changing climatic conditions, and heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Soilless farming (SLF), such as hydroponics, offers a sustainable alternative to conventional farming, by growing crops in nutrient solutions and soilless substrates, using up to 90% less water and land while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, SLF often relies on less sustainable substrates like peat, vermiculite, and rock wool; there is a need to introduce a more sustainable substrate that also fits into the circular economy. Biochar, produced through the high-temperature pyrolysis of waste biomass, presents a promising solution by enhancing water and nutrient retention, suppressing plant diseases, reducing GHG emissions, and providing a habitat for beneficial microbes. Despite initial high investment and energy consumption challenges, advancements in affordable kiln technology have made biochar production more cost-effective.</p><p>This review highlights the transformative potential of integrating biochar into SLF to create a resilient and sustainable agricultural system. It discusses the significance of SLF, the potential of biochar as a substrate, its interactions with microbes, its role in enhancing plant growth and reducing environmental carbon load. Additionally, the review covers the criteria for commercial biochar production, utilization, its economics and the associated challenges in biochar use.</p>","PeriodicalId":54387,"journal":{"name":"Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-024-10167-9","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Current agricultural practices face significant challenges, including depleting arable land, water scarcity, changing climatic conditions, and heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Soilless farming (SLF), such as hydroponics, offers a sustainable alternative to conventional farming, by growing crops in nutrient solutions and soilless substrates, using up to 90% less water and land while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, SLF often relies on less sustainable substrates like peat, vermiculite, and rock wool; there is a need to introduce a more sustainable substrate that also fits into the circular economy. Biochar, produced through the high-temperature pyrolysis of waste biomass, presents a promising solution by enhancing water and nutrient retention, suppressing plant diseases, reducing GHG emissions, and providing a habitat for beneficial microbes. Despite initial high investment and energy consumption challenges, advancements in affordable kiln technology have made biochar production more cost-effective.
This review highlights the transformative potential of integrating biochar into SLF to create a resilient and sustainable agricultural system. It discusses the significance of SLF, the potential of biochar as a substrate, its interactions with microbes, its role in enhancing plant growth and reducing environmental carbon load. Additionally, the review covers the criteria for commercial biochar production, utilization, its economics and the associated challenges in biochar use.
期刊介绍：
The Earth''s biosphere is being transformed by various anthropogenic activities. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change addresses a wide range of environment, economic and energy topics and timely issues including global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, acid deposition, eutrophication of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, species extinction and loss of biological diversity, deforestation and forest degradation, desertification, soil resource degradation, land-use change, sea level rise, destruction of coastal zones, depletion of fresh water and marine fisheries, loss of wetlands and riparian zones and hazardous waste management.
Response options to mitigate these threats or to adapt to changing environs are needed to ensure a sustainable biosphere for all forms of life. To that end, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change provides a forum to encourage the conceptualization, critical examination and debate regarding response options. The aim of this journal is to provide a forum to review, analyze and stimulate the development, testing and implementation of mitigation and adaptation strategies at regional, national and global scales. One of the primary goals of this journal is to contribute to real-time policy analysis and development as national and international policies and agreements are discussed and promulgated.
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