Project start: 01.01.2025
Project end: 31.12.2026
Sponsor: Federal Office for Agriculture and Food

The aim of the PK-BODENABC project is to characterise long-term changes in soils more than 10 years after application of biochar (BC) at four different sites with soil properties ranging from sandy to loamy to clayey, in order to answer the question of whether additive soil carbon storage occurs and whether positive or negative effects are to be expected in the long term. The investigations focus on a number of soil fertility parameters (soil biological and physico-chemical parameters) as well as on a possible additional soil C storage over the past decade beyond the BC application; and exemplarily on the C retention of fresh assimilates in "old" BC soils (13C pulse labeling-tracing). In addition to the influence on C retention, it will also be quantified whether nitrogen (N) losses (including N2O, nitrate) in these soils are reduced in the long term. The project will also use ISO- and OECD-standardised terrestrial and aquatic ecotoxicological effect tests to examine effects on soil fauna (reproduction tests) and on the leachability of pulse-applied pesticides frequently used in agriculture, which can normally enter groundwater and surface water and, according to current knowledge, are possibly better retained in biochar soils, which should be visible in the effects on soil and aquatic fauna.