[Stoves] The Art of Using Grass Bundles in TLUD Stoves

[Julien Winter]

Paul;

Thanks for your sage advice, and for clarifying the chain of reasoning.

For those unaware of Paal Wendelbo grass bundles, you can find a
photograph of Vetiver grass bundles at
http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/page/vetiver-grass-bundles
and videos with infectious enthusiasm.  In bundles, the coarse stems
and leaves provide vertical channels for primary air movement in a
TLUD.

An interesting thing about these coarse grasses, is that if they are
anything like maize, their stems may not very good at building stable
soil organic matter, despite their huge yield.  When maize stems
decompose, they are too course and fibrous to interact much with the
soil and become part of the soil fabric.  If the same applies to other
coarse-stemmed grasses, then making them into biochar in cookstoves is
a very good way of getting their carbon fixed into soil organic
matter.

Cheers,
Julien.


-- 
Julien Winter
Cobourg, ON, CANADA