The DOI matches its Crossref record; 191 of the 192 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Biochar and its effects on plant productivity and nutrient cycling: A meta-analysis
Abstract
Abstract Biochar is a carbon‐rich coproduct resulting from pyrolyzing biomass. When applied to the soil it resists decomposition, effectively sequestering the applied carbon and mitigating anthropogenic CO 2 emissions. Other promoted benefits of biochar application to soil include increased plant productivity and reduced nutrient leaching. However, the effects of biochar are variable and it remains unclear if recent enthusiasm can be justified. We evaluate ecosystem responses to biochar application with a meta‐analysis of 371 independent studies culled from 114 published manuscripts. We find that despite variability introduced by soil and climate, the addition of biochar to soils resulted, on average, in increased aboveground productivity, crop yield, soil microbial biomass, rhizobia nodulation, plant K tissue concentration, soil phosphorus (P), soil potassium (K), total soil nitrogen (N), and total soil carbon (C) compared with control conditions. Soil pH also tended to increase, becoming less acidic, following the addition of biochar. Variables that showed no significant mean response to biochar included belowground productivity, the ratio of aboveground : belowground biomass, mycorrhizal colonization of roots, plant tissue N, and soil P concentration, and soil inorganic N. Additional analyses found no detectable relationship between the amount of biochar added and aboveground productivity. Our results provide the first quantitative review of the effects of biochar on multiple ecosystem functions and the central tendencies suggest that biochar holds promise in being a win‐win‐win solution to energy, carbon storage, and ecosystem function. However, biochar's impacts on a fourth component, the downstream nontarget environments, remain unknown and present a critical research gap.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Despite a meta-analysis showing root nodulation increases with biochar addition [82]”
From A Review of Biochar and Soil Nitrogen Dynamics (2013) · cites this paper as [82]
In the citing paper
“Whereas a meta-analysis found no significant increase in mycorrhizal colonization in biochar amended soils (Biederman and Harpole, 2013), many studies, including more recent ones, have shown that biochar application promotes root colonization by mycorrhizal fungi (Warnock et al., 2007;Rillig et al., 2010;Vanek and Lehmann, 2015;Cobb et al., 2018).”
From Comparing straw, compost, and biochar regarding their suitability as agricultural soil amendments to affect soil structure, nutrient leaching, microbial communities, and the fate of pesticides (2021) · cites this paper as Biederman and Harpole, 2013
In the citing paper
“The three biochar meta-analyses available to date [1,3,4] exclusively compared the effect of freshly produced biochar with that of the respective control, and did not account for composted or otherwise nutrient-enriched biochars.”
From Fourfold increase in pumpkin yield in response to low-dosage root zone application of urine-enhanced biochar to a fertile tropical soil (2015) · cites this paper as [3]
Citations
Cites
ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis
Ginestet, C. E. (2011) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A (Statistics in Society) · doi:10.1111/j.1467-985x.2010.00676_9.x · Cited by 14,511
The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results.
Rosenthal, R. (1979) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.86.3.638 · Cited by 9,068
Pyrolysis of Wood/Biomass for Bio-oil: A Critical Review
Mohan, D., Pittman, C. U., & Steele, P. H. (2006) · Energy & Fuels · doi:10.1021/ef0502397 · Cited by 5,663
Biochar effects on soil biota – A review
Lehmann, J., Rillig, M. C., Thies, J., Masiello, C. A., Hockaday, W. C., & Crowley, D. (2011) · Soil Biology and Biochemistry · doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2011.04.022 · Cited by 5,074
The meta-analysis of response ratios in experimental ecology
Hedges, L. V., Gurevitch, J., & Curtis, P. S. (1999) · Ecology · doi:10.1890/0012-9658(1999)080[1150:tmaorr]2.0.co;2 · Cited by 4,704 · cited 2×
“We used the natural log-transformed response ratio as a measure of effect size (Hedges et al., 1999; Lajeunesse & Forbes, 2003): RRX = ln (T/C), where T is the measured value of the response variable to treatment X [biochar (B), fertilizer (F), or both (BF)] and C is the value in the untreated soils – the control.”
MethodImpacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity
Bellard, C., Bertelsmeier, C., Leadley, P., Thuiller, W., & Courchamp, F. (2012) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01736.x · Cited by 4,555
Bio-char Sequestration in Terrestrial Ecosystems – A Review
Lehmann, J., Gaunt, J., & Rondon, M. (2006) · Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change · doi:10.1007/s11027-005-9006-5 · Cited by 3,053
Glaser, B., Lehmann, J., & Zech, W. (2002) · Biology and Fertility of Soils · doi:10.1007/s00374-002-0466-4 · Cited by 2,890 · cited 5×
“…carbon, its porous structure, high sur- face area, and affinity for charged particles (Keech et al., 2005) interact with physical and biological components of the soil (Glaser et al., 2002; Steiner et al., 2008a) and can have cascading effects throughout the ecosystem (Hammes & Schmidt, 2009).”
BackgroundResultInfluentialEnvironmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels
Hill, J., Nelson, E., Tilman, D., Polasky, S., & Tiffany, D. (2006) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0604600103 · Cited by 2,871
Sustainable biochar to mitigate global climate change
Woolf, D., Amonette, J. E., Street-Perrott, F. A., Lehmann, J., & Joseph, S. (2010) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms1053 · Cited by 2,680
Flagged first, then by citations
1 of the 192 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Research works printed but not linked: 7
- Hammes K, 2009, Biochar for Environmental Management, 169
- Hoshi T, 2001, Proceedings of 2001 International Conference on O‐cha (tea) Culture and Science Tokyo, Japan, 147
- Lehmann J, 2009, Biochar for Environmental Management, 1
- Nishio M, 1991, Stimulation of the growth of alfalfa and infection of roots with indigenous vesicular‐arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi by the application of charcoal, Bulletin of the National Grassland Research Institute, 45, 61
- Rodriguez L, 2011, Effect of a culture of “native” micro‐organisms, biochar and biodigester effluent on the growth of maize in acid soils, Livestock Research for Rural Development, 23, 1
- Shenhagavalli S, 2012, Characterization and effect of biochar on nitrogen and carbon dynamics in soil, International Journal of Advanced Biological Research, 2, 249
- Solaiman ZM, 2010, 19th World Congress of Soil Science, Soil Solutions for a Changing World, 33
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Biochar stability in soil: meta-analysis of decomposition and priming effects
Wang, J., Xiong, Z., & Kuzyakov, Y. (2016) · GCB Bioenergy · doi:10.1111/gcbb.12266 · Cited by 1,316
Biochar and Soil Physical Properties
Blanco-Canqui, H. (2017) · Soil Science Society of America Journal · doi:10.2136/sssaj2017.01.0017 · Cited by 1,106
Joseph, S., Cowie, A. L., Van Zwieten, L., Bolan, N., Budai, A., Buss, W., Cayuela, M. L., Graber, E. R., Ippolito, J. A., Kuzyakov, Y., et al. (2021) · GCB Bioenergy · doi:10.1111/gcbb.12885 · Cited by 1,090
Biochar's role in mitigating soil nitrous oxide emissions: A review and meta-analysis
Cayuela, M. L., van Zwieten, L., Singh, B. P., Jeffery, S., Roig, A., & Sánchez-Monedero, M. A. (2014) · Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment · doi:10.1016/j.agee.2013.10.009 · Cited by 1,053
Zhu, X., Chen, B., Zhu, L., & Xing, B. (2017) · Environmental Pollution · doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2017.04.032 · Cited by 1,021
Metadata
- Authors
- Biederman, L. A., & Harpole, W. S.
- Affiliations
- Iowa State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Biederman, Lori A.
- Venue
- GCB Bioenergy
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2012-12-31
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 202-214
- ISSN
- 1757-1693 (ISSN-L)
- 1757-1707
- OpenAlex
- W2129623720
- Cited by
- 1,737
- References
- 192
- Citations by year
- 2026: 146 · 2025: 133 · 2024: 160 · 2023: 157 · 2022: 143 · 2021: 179 · 2020: 155 · 2019: 139 · 2018: 124 · 2017: 131 · 2016: 107 · 2015: 74 · 2014: 63 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 78.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- GCB Bioenergy (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Fuel Technology › Thermochemical Biomass Conversion Processes
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Agricultural Science and Fertilization
- Keywords
- biochar, soil amendment, plant productivity, crop yield, nutrient cycling, soil carbon sequestration, soil microbial biomass, rhizobia nodulation, soil pH, soil nitrogen, soil phosphorus, soil potassium, mycorrhizal colonization, nutrient leaching, biomass pyrolysis
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
