So I'm helping a friend mix a new batch of soil and bought a bag of raw char to mix in. Now I'm looking at charging it up and have been told several different ideas on prepping it. Some say 2-3 days others say 2 weeks or more. Im thinking of getting a bag of organic chicken manure, some of my castings, a little mushroom compost and brewing a potent Gro-Kashi tea to wet it all down and let that go for like 3-4 days maybe a week. Anyone got any pointers???
I wouldn't say that's needed, when you "charge" biochar what you are doing is essentially "filling" it with nutrients prior to it being in the soil, because if you do not it robs the soil pretty quickly of any nutrients, sorta the same way uncomposted-compost does... only different, but end results are the same.
I think what you are thinking is to pre-charge it with microbes, which is a wonderful idea. Most go with a nutrient tea instead but what your recipe is sorta a mix between the two.
I personally would maybe go with a different recipe perhaps?
Many just like a alfalfa and kelp meal tea, while not nearly as effective for producing microbes as an aact, you have many more wonderful things you are adding to your biochar.
For an aact i'd simply go with good fresh EWC, molasses and bubble away, you could add fish hydrosylate if you want, or kelp, or alfalfa..
But the guys with the microscopes say simply EWC and molasses and a good air pump is the most effective.
Personally what I did for my biochar was to soak it in my dandelion/comfrey FPE.. seems to be working well, but it's hard to tell, I have my recipe pretty dialed in for my plants so its all a nice happy ecosystem in there.
Oh and it only takes like maybe a couple hours at most for the biochar to soak up whatever is in your tea, doesn't take days.
If you are making an AACT it could take two days if its cold, less if it warm. Nutrient teas don't need to bubbled very long at all
