The toilets at Woodford's Planting Festival, staged this weekend north of Brisbane, are doing more than providing relief for festival-goers, with urine being collected as part of an experiment in improving soils.

It is the latest in a series of soil and plant experiments at Woodfordia, the site of the annual Woodford Folk Festival.

Festival director Bill Hauritz said the experimentation with the biochar and composting techniques started as a project to help speed up the growth of trees and bamboo on site.

Urine is being collected from festival toilets as part of an experiment with fertilisers. ( Supplied: Woodford Folk Festival )

The festival's volunteers add the urine to a char created at the site, which was left to soak and then turned into a form of super fertiliser.

"We know that biochar is a good thing for the environment but it's an intensely good thing for soil. It was described to me as luxury apartment blocks for soil microbes," Mr Hauritz said.

What is biochar?

The biochar created on the Woodford site is made from bamboo, wood and paper waste which is heated in a homemade tank to very high temperatures — up to about 800 degrees Celsius.

Scientist Brian Von Herzen from the US Climate Foundation is visiting Woodford for the Planting Festival.

"It's about heating up biomass in a low oxygen environment so that it can pyrolyse," he said.

"It gives off gas, which can be put back into the process, and about half the carbon is left over as biological charcoal."

Biochar created from bamboo at Woodford. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Jacqueline Street )

He said idea of charcoal as a fertiliser gained momentum after it was discovered that soils in South America had been enriched by centuries of human waste from activities such as cooking.

Scientist Brian Von Herzen of the US Climate Foundation is an expert on the benefits of biochar. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Jacqueline Street )

"In some sense biochar is 1,500 years old. The most productive soils in all of South America were soils created by man, not in the fields, but behind the kitchen window," Dr Von Herzen said.

The US researcher said he hoped to increase the use of biochar around the globe to restore depleted soils, such as those on some Australian farms.

"It can form the foundation for incredibly productive soils, particularly in the tropics and sub tropics like Queensland." Dr Von Herzen said.

How does urine help the soil?

One of the leaders of the biochar testing at Woodford, David Bauer, said the char formed a great fertiliser, but it could not just be sprinkled on the ground — it needed to be activated to invite the microbes in.

"If you put the biochar in the soil it will rob the soil of nutrients, so normally you pre-activate it then bury it as deep as possible," Mr Bauer said.

Known around the Woodfordia site as 'Dave the Wizard', Mr Bauer said the need to activate the char led him to the festival toilets.

"We got a little experiment we're going to do to try to activate it with human urine. It might sound terrible, but it's going to be controlled. In that way it only takes a couple of days and the biochar becomes activated," Mr Bauer said.

Woodford's 'Dave the Wizard' is also hoping to make a type of creosote that will protect bamboo from insects. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Jacqueline Street )

"I'm not sure whether people are going to stand over buckets or how it will be done, but I assure you it will have restraints."

Mr Bauer said the urine experiment was a great way to get volunteers and festival-goers involved in the biochar process.

"It's to get people involved and to show them how they could do it at home very easily — to take charcoal out of their fireplace, putting it in a bucket and basically putting that in the garden," he said.



Future uses of Woodfordia's biochar plant

Mr Bauer admitted his plant looked a bit like "something out of Mad Max", but said the work was serious.

"This is basically a pilot plant. It's more than an experiment we know that works," he said.

He said the process would also create a more natural form of creosote to help coat the bamboo structures on-site to prevent insect attacks.

He planned to test the biochar product at a new nursery being built on-site before offering it to other land managers in the region.

"I think I've nearly got a mining company on side, they want to do trials on their rehab," Mr Bauer said.

It's hoped that the biochar experiments at Woodford will benefit the neighbouring farming community. ( ABC Sunshine Coast: Jacqueline Street )

"Local farmers here have shown an interest and they want to be part of the trials. I've got farmers as far as Kingaroy and the South Burnett that want to participate in trials."

Mr Bauer also hoped to get a government research grant and was cooperating with the Climate Foundation from Massachusetts in the US and an Australian-New Zealand biochar initiative.

Bill Hauritz said the Woodford site offered an opportunity for volunteers and experts to work together on soil improvement and he hoped the biochar research would provide benefits for the rest of Australia.

"It's going to help cropping, it's going to help soil in general, and we need to get this out there," he said.

"If we can play a role in this we're very keen."