Department of Plant Pathology, The Volcani Center – Agricultural Research Organization, Rishon Lezion, Israel; Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel cHochschule Geisenheim University, Geisenheim, Germany
The increasing demand for soilless substrates and rising environmental concerns about the use of non-renewable resources such as peat has led to the search for alternative constituents of growing mixtures for containerized plants. In this report we reviewed the works concerning biochar as constituent of growing media, targeting its influence on plant growth and plant disease. Biochar mostly has positive or neutral influences on plant growth compared with peat media when present in concentrations higher than 25% (v:v). However, studies of biochar influence on plant disease reveals that while lower concentrations (≤1%) of biochar often suppressed several diseases, higher concentrations (≥3%) were mostly ineffective or induced plant disease. For use as horticultural peat replacement, it is recommended that biochar feedstocks and concentrations be standardized and the potential effect of biochar on plant disease be considered, so that growers can rely on consistent and reproducible biochars for desired effects.
Frenkel, O., Jaiswal, A. K., Elad, Y., Lew, B., & Graber, E. R. (2017). The effect of biochar on plant diseases: what should we learn while designing biochar substrates?. Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management, 25(2), 105-113. https://doi.org/10.3846/16486897.2017.1307202
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
