Date of Award

12-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences

Abstract

Biochar is a crucial soil amendment used in agriculture to enhance soil health, improve crop yields, and increase climate resilience, thereby promoting sustainable agriculture. Biochar produced from Juncus effusus plants can also be utilized to enhance soil health, increase water retention, and improve nutrient availability and beneficial microbial activity, thereby promoting better plant growth and stress management. This research was conducted at the Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) research farm. It aimed to highlight how biochar produced from J. effusus, utilizing a circulator system that sequesters heavy metals from the water and then converts it to biochar, can be used, and to investigate the effects that biochar may have on the soil's physical and chemical properties in the context of sorghum production and greenhouse gas emissions (CH4, N2O, CO2). To conduct the research, the application process involved banding, which was 5 cm away from the plant stem and 5 cm below the soil surface to prevent fertilizer burning. The study incorporated half, recommended, and double recommended rates,based solely on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards, as well as the fertilizer application rate. For statistical analyses, ANOVA and post hoc Tukey tests were used to evaluate statistically significant differences among the variables and the groups. The Double recommended rate yielded the highest biomass, but did not comply with USDA standards. The recommended rates of fertilizer were the best among the treatments. Still, they provided no long-term benefits to the soil's physical and chemical properties, making biochar and chemical fertilizer at recommended rates a more effective alternative.

Index Terms – CH₄, CO₂, fertilizer, Juncus effusus, N₂O, soil health, sorghum

Committee Chair/Advisor

Ram L. Ray

Committee Member

Richard W. Griffin

Committee Member

Gebrekidan W. Tefera

Publisher

Prairie View A&M University

Rights

© 2021 Prairie View A & M University

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Date of Digitization

10/27/2026

Contributing Institution

J B Coleman Library

City of Publication

Prairie View

MIME Type

Application/PDF

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