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Gardening Area => Growing questions and answers => Topic started by: Roze on February 26, 2015, 09:29:18 PM

Title: wood pellets as soil amendment?
Post by: Roze on February 26, 2015, 09:29:18 PM

Hello,

The consumption of wood pellets is increasing  mainly due for residential heating and because they are considered an ecological alternative to gas or charcoal.

 Nowadays they are in  vogue on my country, an in all Europe I guess,  this makes them very accessible at low prices.  Today I was looking at the composition of it and I notice that they are made from 100% pure pine without any chemicals and with 10 % water.. therefore Im thinking to use some of it as a ingredient for soil mixes.. I believe it will be able to increase drainage, keep humidity high, add more structure and air through soil and also provides an organic component that offers nutrient retention all this hopefully will increase plant growth. My my doubt is related to the pH changes.

do you think is a good idea or should I forget this?
...

Wood pellets as solution for helping the climate are creating some controversy. But  unlike fossil fuels such as coal and oil, wood is a renewable fuel: Where one tree goes down, another can grow. I know that in my country  the companies that cut down the trees replant six trees for every one cut, this way they ensure raw material for the future.
 Most of the pellets come from managed forests.  I believe that a sustainable production of pallets is beneficial to the environment. Burning wood is carbon neutral.  The wood takes the carbon from the air and it is put back by burning.  If you do not burn the wood, the carbon still returns to the air in the form of decay.  A mature forest is carbon neutral and all forests are carbon neutral over their lifetime.

Burning biomass is not such a bad thing if done responsibly. If we utilize waste biomass and plant new trees to sequester more carbon, it could actually help to clean up the environment.

Thanks for reading!  ;)

Title: Re: wood pellets as soil amendment?
Post by: chamomeleon on February 26, 2015, 09:58:40 PM

Perhaps these will help.  A lot of info on mulching!

https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/files/project/pdf/ec1629.pdf

Also, more pine specific info.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1421638/acidity-of-pine

Title: Re: wood pellets as soil amendment?
Post by: danzick on August 27, 2016, 06:45:43 AM

I believe that adding non-decomposed wood to soil can deplete the available nitrogen.  Of course, you can overcome that by adding more fertilizer.  Do a search on adding wood to soil, nitrogen depletion.  :)