@stone - yes, I had to slog through the thesis also. But the long and short of it was that the crops with the bio char did about 26% better that those without. Plants were taller, with more leaves and more pods. Yield was about 26% higher than the crops with no biochar. Also, the thesis said that human urine was the perfect nutritional match for what plants need, and is easily processed by plants.
But you have to make sure you charge the charcoal first before adding it to your soil, or the charcoal will spend the next year sapping the nutrients from you soil first before doing anything good. And then your plants won't do well that first year. Charging it up first will let you improve your plants right away. Living in a condo, I am not able to make my own charcoal. So I bought several bags of Royal Oak 100% Natural Hardwood Lump charcoal at General Dollar. It was only about $7/bag - much cheaper than the grocery store. Then I took a hammer and and crushed it into smaller pieces. I have read that you can also drive you car over the entire bag to crush it, but thought my condo neighbors might think I am crazy, and I don't want the truth to get out.
After that, I put the charcoal into plastic coffee containers, added my Liquid Gold and some other stuff (pickle juice, molasses, handful of compost etc.) Have done it a couple of ways, using suggestions I found online and on YouTube etc. Other things that can be added: flour, fertilizer etc). Some just use the urine and nothing else. Then I put the top on the canister and just let it set for a couple of weeks _ I have heard it needs at least 10 days to charge or "mature". It is my understanding that you want to do 3 things: let moisture be absorbed, let nutrients soak into the charcoal, let microbes start to grow. I did also buy 2 bags of already charged up biochar from Walmart - it was pretty powdery and I hear the smaller you make the bio char, the better. But it will be cheaper for me to use the Royal Oak, so that is what I am doing now. I can't wait to see how my potatoes turn out - will let you know!
