Summary
Research on biochar has increased, but its long‐term effect on the fertility of temperate agricultural soil remains unclear. In Wallonia, Belgium, pre‐industrial charcoal production affected former forested areas that were cleared for cultivation in the nineteenth century. The sites of traditional charcoal kilns, largely enriched in charcoal residues, are similar to soil amended with hardwood biochar more than 150 years ago. We sampled 17 charcoal kiln sites to characterize their effect on soil properties compared with adjacent reference soils. Charcoal‐C content was estimated by differential scanning calorimetry. The kiln soil contains from 1.8 to 33.1 g kg −1 of charcoal‐C, which markedly increases organic C:N and C:P ratios. It also contains slightly more uncharred soil organic carbon (
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