Abstract

Soil health is defined as the capacity of a soil to function within ecosystem and land use boundaries, to sustain biological productivity, maintain environmental quality, and promote plant and animal health. Primary functions of soil include sustaining biological productivity, regulating water flow, storing and cycling of nutrients, filtering, buffering, and transforming organic and inorganic materials. The decrease in biomass production, decrease in organic matter supply and increased decomposition rate are the primary factors to reduction in soil organic matter. Biochar is a stable carbon compound created when biomass is heated to temperatures between 300 and 1000ËšC, under low oxygen concentrations. Fire accelerates carbon cycle, but biochar decelerates it. It is commonly defined as charred organic matter, produced with the intent to deliberately sequester carbon and improve soil properties. Biochar is to abate the enhanced greenhouse effect by sequestering C in soils, while concurrently improving soil quality. Application of biochar is very imperative to increase soil fertility, enhance nutrient uptake, ameliorate Cr polluted soils and reduce the amount of carbon produced due to biomass burning. It has the potential to increase conventional agricultural productivity and mitigate green house gas emissions from agricultural soils. This has led to renewed interest of agricultural researchers to produce biochar from bio-residues and it is used as a soil amendment.

Key words: Biochar, Mycorrhiza, soil physico chemical properties, soil microbes, carbon sequestration, green house gas emission.