Four Winds Farms Grows Hemp with Biochar Compost Mixture and Favorable Management

Scott Booher’s Four Winds Farm began in April 2020 to amend their soil with compost and biochar to improve soil carbon content (increase organic matter), nutrient availability, structure, and biology. Together with ARTi, 16 cubic yards of DDG biochar was added to the farm soil along with 204 cubic yards of compost (200 cy of Miscanthus Compost and 4 cy of Chicken Litter Compost). DDG biochar is from dried distillers’ grain, a byproduct of the fermentation of corn. The compost and biochar added 24 US tons of organic carbon to the soil (2 tons from biochar and 22 from compost). This increased the organic matter from 2.98% to 6.04% in 3 years. Other positive results were also seen in soil pH and nutrient availability which we will detail.