@article{fdi:010092792,
  title = {{B}iochars improve agricultural production : the evidence base is limited},
  author = {{C}haplot, {V}incent and {B}aveye, {P}. and {G}uenon, {R}. and {L}e {G}uyader, {E}. and {M}inasny, {B}. and {S}rivastava, {A}. {K}.},
  editor = {},
  language = {{ENG}},
  abstract = {{B}iochar application to soil is commonly recognized to improve soil fertility and consequently biomass and food production sustainably. {W}e re-examined the robustness of the underlying data and found that, of the 12 000+ publications on "biochar and agriculture" used in meta-studies, only 109 {I}nstitute for {S}cientific {I}nformation ({ISI}) papers (or 0.9%) provide experimental data on the impacts on crop yield and/or biomass production. {O}ur analysis revealed that none (0%) of these studies compared a biochar treatment to a treatment adding to the soil the same amounts of easily accessible nutrients as found in biochar, 0.9% evaluated the toxicity of biochar, and 5.5% considered at least two cropping cycles after a single biochar application, which in all cases are major shortcomings. {F}inally, when computed only for agricultural soils (n = 65), the mean biomass or grain yield gain, which was 16.1% (median at 7.1%) for all available experiments, decreased to -0.64% (median at 5.2%). {C}onsequently, the underlying evidence base to support biochar application in agricultural soils to enhance biomass production and grain yield is so far limited.},
  keywords = {},
  booktitle = {},
  journal = {{P}edosphere},
  volume = {35},
  numero = {1},
  pages = {295--298},
  ISSN = {1002-0160},
  year = {2025},
  DOI = {10.1016/j.pedsph.2024.10.009},
  URL = {https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010092792},
}