charcoal ratio?

bonhe

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What is its ratio in your soil mix?
Thanks. Bonhe
 

bonhe

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Wow, it's very suprising that nobody here is using charcoal in soil mix. I'm guessing that I'll go on my own. :)
Bonhe
 

mcpesq817

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Hey Bonhe,

Boon did a repotting workshop with my club, and I believe he recommended throwing in a handful of horticultural charcoal into your mix. When I repotted my trees this spring, I just threw in a little into my mix for my trees.
 

ianb

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I too did the Boon repotting workshop at Rich Bozeks last year, if I remember correctly he said a handful per 5 gallon bucket of soil mix.
 

bonhe

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Hi Mcpesq817 and Ianb, thanks for your information. Bonhe
 

greerhw

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When Marco was here working on my trees in April, all I had was grilling charcoal, he took 4 or 5 brickets and busted them up with a hammer and put them in the pot first before the potting soil, nothing scientific at all....

keep it green,
Harry
 

meushi

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It depends of the species, for pines I put up to a fifth of the mix as charcoal and they seem to love it. One of the reasons for adding charcoal is mycorrhization, as demonstrated by Japanese experimental data on black pines and fruiting trees.
 

bonhe

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When Marco was here working on my trees in April, all I had was grilling charcoal, he took 4 or 5 brickets and busted them up with a hammer and put them in the pot first before the potting soil, nothing scientific at all....

keep it green,
Harry
Hi Harry, it's a good idea to fill a large pot with large size charcoal in the bottom to reduce the pot weight, to save soil and to improve drainage. Moving a large bonsai is a hard job :)

It depends of the species, for pines I put up to a fifth of the mix as charcoal and they seem to love it. One of the reasons for adding charcoal is mycorrhization, as demonstrated by Japanese experimental data on black pines and fruiting trees.
Hi Meushi, it also has antioxidant feature which prevents the root rot.
I found so many good features of hardwood charcoal. I'll definitely use it next year.
Thanks for all information. Bonhe
 

head_cutter

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Hey bonhe, using a little charcoal is always a good thing for general health. Something else I've always used (in the US) was some kennel bedding or cedar chips, a small amount maybe 5%. I've never had any adverse problems with any tree but...seems that most soil-born pests are either killed by it or repelled by the oil. I'm not a 'tree-hugger' by any means but anytime I could cut down on pest control work I did.

Bob
 

Mortalis

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It depends of the species, for pines I put up to a fifth of the mix as charcoal and they seem to love it. One of the reasons for adding charcoal is mycorrhization, as demonstrated by Japanese experimental data on black pines and fruiting trees.

How does the charcoal actually help this.. does the beneficial fungi like it? I have never actually included charcoal in any of my mixes before. Never crossed my mind to try it.
 

meushi

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I don't understand the fine details, just that the application of charcoal stimulates indigenous arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. The details are explained in Ogawa 1983 and Nishio and Okano 1991.
 
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