On Driscoll Ridge south of Troy, Jaycee Johnson learned about farming while sitting in the buddy seat of her father’s combine.
As they bumped along a rolling Palouse farm field kicking up dust, Johnson learned about erosion, soil moisture, yield and plant nutrients.
“I’d be sitting next to him in the cab of the combine, and you can just see as you’re going over a hillside where the yield is lower, and when you get into the draw you have a much higher yield,” Johnson recalls. “My dad was always very talkative and would tell me why this was happening, educating me about it.”
Hillside plants struggled because runoff eroded the soil, carrying nutrients to the valleys where crops thrived.
“My grandpa talked about the erosion; my dad talks about it — he’s been farming here for 40 years,” she said. “We definitely chatted about that quite a bit.”
Johnson, a U of I doctoral student in biological engineering, is applying her farm experience to help boost yields on the Palouse.
Under Professor Dev Shrestha, Johnson is helping study how adding biochar to fields can reduce runoff and boost soil moisture on Palouse hillsides prone to erosion by wind, rain and snowmelt.
Wood waste can be turned into biochar to make a low-cost biochar for farmers to use.
Dev Shrestha
Professor of bioengineering
Basics of biochar
Biochar, a byproduct of farming and logging, is made by superheating leftover wheat stalks, chaff and wood slash until they disintegrate but haven’t yet turned to ash, Shrestha said. Biochar has been used in gardening to increase soil moisture, but it’s expensive.
Because the ingredients to make biochar are readily available in the Northwest, Shrestha sees potential for a regional, low-cost biochar industry.
“Right now, it’s very expensive to apply at farm scale,” he said. “But in the surrounding area and regionally, there are millions of tons of wood waste with very low to no market value. That wood waste can be turned into biochar to make a low-cost soil enhancement. Eventually, I’m hoping we can establish an industry here where the lumber mills can turn their wood waste into biochar.”
Lab studies show biochar improves soil moisture by increasing porosity and providing surfaces that retain water. Biochar’s large surface area and porous structure help soil retain more water per volume.
If farmers had an affordable product that could be applied to the least productive, highly eroded portions of their fields, they could boost yields, reduce fertilizer costs and farm more sustainably, Shrestha said.
His team of students and faculty members from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences installed nearly 300 underground soil sensors to various slopes in an agricultural field south of Moscow to monitor moisture. After a season of data collection, biochar will be applied to the same fields to measure its impact on soil moisture.
“We know biochar helps retain soil moisture, but we don’t yet know how much or its economic value to farmers,” Shrestha said. “Once we have the data, we’ll develop software for farmers that gives them feedback on where and how much biochar to apply to get the most bang for their buck.”
Johnson said her father, like many Palouse farmers, is open to better farming methods and is always exploring new practices. If biochar proves effective and affordable, it will likely catch on with other local farmers, she said.
Many farmers are looking for ways to conserve the amount of nutrients that they often apply at a constant rate across their fields, Johnson said.
But overapplying nutrients to offset runoff caused by rain or snowmelt is costly. Much of it leaches away before reaching the plants where it is needed most. Being able to keep fertilizer where it’s placed allows farmers to decrease input costs.
Palouse biochar research aims to improve yields
Researchers explore how biochar from wood and straw waste, when added to erodible Palouse soils, can maintain soil moisture and keep nutrients from migrating downhill thus preventing eutrophication in streams and ponds while fertilizing crops on otherwise erosion-susceptible slopes.
Promoting a more efficient system
“This project aims to help farmers lower their input costs and increase yields, and that’s really what you want in an efficient system,” Johnson said. “One of the challenges of farming is producing enough for a growing population with the same amount of land we’ve always had — biochar could help maximize the yield.”
The research also considers environmental factors.
“We want to produce a large yield for years to come, so we want to retain topsoil and prevent leaching of chemicals and fertilizer into waterways, which can harm the environment,” said Johnson.
Later, she learned how to operate all the equipment on the farm, from small tractors to combines.
“I remember conking it out on the hillsides and having to let out the clutch to get it to go again, or roll backwards down the hill,” she said.
Johnson earned her undergraduate degree in 2024 in biological engineering at U of I after her dad encouraged her to pursue a degree that was practical.
“I knew I wanted to do something agricultural related,” she said. “This research has the potential to really help farmers in the region.”