Industrial Cannabis sativa-Hemp: Biochar applications and disadvantages

This review paper highlights Industrial Cannabis sativa-Hemp uses and disadvantages particularly in the form of biochar. Biochar is defined as the burning of the organic material at high temperature under limited oxygen supply to produce carbon rich material is known as biochar. Biochar is a carbon-rich product that is formed under pyrolysis of different organic materials. Biochars were generally characterized by having a porous nature and large surface area. Biochar can provide nutrients to the soil directly because it contains nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Progressive mineralization of biochar in soil releases inherent nutrients into the soil. Hemp biochar carbonized at 800–1000°C displayed interesting electrical conductivity, opening opportunities for its use in electrical purposes. Biochar is an important material for environmental management to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, such as sequestration of CO2 and CH4, and ozone-depleting N2O emissions. Biochar can be utilised as a soil conditioner and a container substrate amendment in agriculture and horticulture. Biochar also has the potential to improve a variety of soil and substrate physical, chemical, and biological qualities. However, there are some disadvantages of biochar, is that the addition of biochar resulted in such a high pH that the plant growth was severely reduced, which might have obscured any potentially beneficial effect of using biochar. This however highlighted the challenge in using biochar in organic growing media due to the difficulty in maintaining the pH at an adequate level for plant growth.