Char Chit Chat

Dylan's first face to face podcast with an update from Phil in Ashhurst about what he is up to (S1E2 here ). We had just returned from Hamilton with John after Fieldays 2026 and I was spending two days staying with Phil on my way to Wellington. Phil has been at this property , soon after arriving from the States, for 21 years. It was great to have a tour of his permaculture influenced block of aro...

Episode 9 with Lydia from the Wairarapa covers the relationship between soil health, plant nutrition, and human health. Lydia is a qualified nutritionist on a mission to pickle household food scraps using bokashi buckets along with her bone char made from her friend's Complete Cow farm business, and supporting people on a mission to improve their health. We talk about her 2 businesses; Pickled...

Episode 8 with John explores his recent discovery of biochar for his compost and his method of making it in a stainless steel bucket. This takes some work to do, but in a social context such as hanging out with his grandchildren, is way more like constructive play and not really work at all. John has embedded himself into the community in various ways along the Kapiti Coast, living in Paraparaumu,...

Episode 7 features Stephen who lives just north of Auckland on 23 acres. He is one of the farmers who receives food waste from the City To Farm project featured in Season 1 Episode 6 . We talk about how he deals with that food waste on his property and what he is using the resulting biochar enriched compost for. We learn about Stephen's dung beetle breeding endeavour and how good dung beetles...

Episode 6 featured James from the Hawkes Bay. We talk about his current role as a tutor at Land Based Training where he hopes to incorporate biochar into the horticulture courses. James' passion for biochar shows through as we get into the chat. He bought himself a kontiki kiln several years ago and wanted to create a business making and selling biochar and blends with other products, but stru...

Anni talks to Dylan about her life journey from Germany to Portugal to settling in New Zealand in 2012. She and husband Ron homestead on 50 acres in Maheno in North Otago and besides homeschooling 3 children, homesteading with livestock, reading books, she also has a small business providing biological spraying services using biochar! Anni shares her insights into human health and the link to the...

Katerina has been involved in biochar in New Zealand since the 'early days' - one of the pioneers who saw it as a practical way to sequester carbon in response to excess carbon in the air. She talks about her trials in the garden using biochar and how she still continues to use it in her compost and to grow food. We talk about what young people think about climate issues nowadays and some...

The Force of Nature Podcast is where regenerative thinking meets high-performance farming. Hosted by farm consultant Conan Moynihan , this show dives deep into the future of food, farming, and human health. Tune in for real-world conversations with farmers, thinkers, and disruptors who are transforming agriculture from the soil up; building profitable, resilient, and life-giving systems. If you’re...

Gerard turned 65 and then bought a 550ha farm for his retirement! Together with his son Jake, they are exploring more regenerative ways of farming livestock while also looking after the land. Biochar is an emerging part of this journey and I really like the DIY, give-it-a-go approach Kaipara Coast Farm is taking. We chat about diversifying pastures, spraying out biochar with special brews designed...

Great to get dairy farmers on the Char Chit Chat who actively use and promote biochar in many aspects of their farming operation. We delve into their farming journey and reveal many very sensible aspects such as once a day milking, cow barns with bunkers to give the cows comfort and to harness their nutrients, as well as their use of biochar as a feed supplement and carbon sponge. In addition to f...

The last podcast for the year for Season 1! Dylan is joined by Matt from Carbon Options at Gallops Ridge Farm in the lower north island. We talk about Matt's journey in life and with biochar as a solution to forestry slash on their property. They are giving parts back to nature and parts are being rehabilitated for farming. Biochar and livestock are being used to build the topsoil again after 3 pi...

This is an audio version (with some commentary) of the literature review and creation of 10 Benefits of Biochar to Dairy Farms completed in late November 2025: https://biochar.net.nz/about-biochar/economic-applications/dairy-cows-and-biochar

Raymond is the founder, driving force, and funder behind BiocharTP . His company is developing two main products - an air curtain biochar producing machine and a livestock feed supplement called Carbon-kai. We chat about Raymond's working life journey, his entrepreneurial success, and current huge biochar project and the problems it can potentially solve: grape marc, king salmon mortalities, wildi...

Trevor is one of the founding members of Biochar Network New Zealand ( BNNZ ) and the secretary since its inception in 2019. He joined me for a chat and talked about his journey with biochar and many insights into its prevalence in SouthEast Asia and New Zealand. Another flame cap method using Warm Heart kilns , that I hadn't heard of before, was described in detail and the Warm Heart organisa...

In this episode Dylan reads the article now on the BNNZ website that outlines the benefits of adding biochar into any composting system. Dylan was paid by BNNZ to create the article and a couple of versions of it to help promote biochar being used in composting. It outlines 10+ ways that biochar benefits composting. Aeration, nutrient adsorption, biology habitat promotion, pH improvement, carbon s...

Excited to release this chat with Huhana so you too can enjoy her passion for biochar and growing good food. Huhana is an artist, university professor, farmer, kaitiaki, biochar enthusiast, and more... We explore a recent stream rehabilitation project made into an art project that has probably exposed thousands of people to biochar with an exhibition in Wellington. We go into some detail on making...

Episode 14 featured Cameron who lives on a lifestyle block near Pukekohe in the Auckland region of New Zealand. I liked Cameron's answer to what is biochar: "I like the coral reef analogy - I think it's something people understand. They have a strong visual image of what a coral reef is... and full of life, a structure, a habitat..." Cameron is super passionate about biochar beca...

John is a researcher and academic so it was great to hear his perspective and explanations of biochar knowledge that he has gained from doing a PhD tackling 3 aspects of biochar; investigating how biochar changes on a molecular level at different carbonisation temperatures, quality testing protocol development, and composite materials innovation. Ket takeaways for me : 1. Higher temperature pyroly...

Episode 12 was an inspiring chat with Simon from Waiuku (40km south west of Auckland city) who uses biochar to enhance his pastures as well as feeds it to cattle to improve their health. The success is evident in the increased pasture regrowth times and animals not needing drenching, having high fertility rates, and growing faster. Yes, it is work to make biochar, but the benefits are obvious to S...

Episode 11 of Char Chit Chat features a chat with Dale from the Bay of Plenty area of New Zealand. Dale is an ecologist with a strong interest in tree systems and biochar. We delve into his hands-on, low budget methods of making biochar from tree branches on the family farm. Dale has started his own business called Rivendale Wood where he sells products from the treed landscape of the farm. We als...

Episode 10 (into the double digits!) is with John from Paekākāriki on the Kāpiti Coast. We chat about his discovery and immediate fixation with biochar around 2020 and then the formation of a local char group as an offshoot of the community gardens . CharPae applied for grants from local council to get the gear to go and demonstrate and educate about biochar in the community. Something all council...

Dylan chats with Helen Dew (now 87) who featured in the documentary called Being the Change at 85 . Helen speaks with conviction about how important healthy soil is, and how biochar, bokashi, compost, and mulch in combination all help soil health. We talk about her upcoming autobiography and her plan for a natural burial as well as an alternative to the current, but unnecessary economic growth par...

Klaus and his family run PermaDynamics Farm and Education up in Northland and we chat about his long history with biochar and agroforestry. Permaculture comes up too. I really recommend having a look through their website after the podcast and also seeing what is on offer on their youtube channel. They offer a paid educational service helping people to learn about Syntropics as well as a planning...

Cornelia (and Kai) run KoruKai Herb Farm in Banks Peninsular, near Christchurch. We had an excellent chat about how they make and use biochar for their animals, compost toilet, worm product, and composting in general. Also, about their homesteading and small home business selling herb related products as well as live compost worms! Resources mentioned: Phyto Farm : bringing plant medicine back to...

Wow - what a great project Betsy has going on - City to Farm is all about collecting food resources in the city and using it to build soil on a banana farm! The project is on a mission to see if Terra Preta can be created and how it long it will take as well as educating primary school students about biochar and composting food scraps. The episode features the excellent video by Nicholas Monk call...