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| Lets not get too carried away. Black carbon or biochar is indeed interesting stuff. In burning cornfields, the conversion of biomass to biochar is very inefficient - too much oxygen and hence the fire burns too hot. So almost all of the organic carbon goes up as carbon dioxide. For biochar production, you need ~ 900 degrees F and no oxygen - the same conditions for making charcoal. In burning a cornfield, all of the P & K and other minerals are returned to the soil. All of the nitrogen is dumped into the atmosphere. At the same time, uncontrolled burning produces a whole range of chemicals known to be toxic and/or carcinogenic - the same ones produced by the burning of tobacco.
What you probably don’t want to do is end up in a situation where a knowledgeable neighbor reports you for violating the 10 ton rule under the clean air act. If I remember correctly, treble damages (based upon their calculations) collected by the government and the reporting neighbor gets a significant percentage. I think that violation of the 10 ton rule also moves your entire operation to the one ton rule.
For every ton of grain harvested, a cornfield will have a dry ton of above ground cornstalks (and an equivalent amount below ground). If you have narrow rows or are pushing plant populations, biomass levels will be higher. If you are managing your nitrogen well, you'll have 500 to 800 PPM of nitrogen in those stalks, all of which will be lost, primarily as NOx. If you don't manage your nitrogen, you will have levels of 8,000 to 10,000 PPM of nitrogen. 10,000 PPM is 1% of the biomass. So if you yield is 180 bpa of grain, you'll have 5 tons (10,000 pounds) of above-ground biomass and will lose 100# of nitrogen into the air. However, if you are a good manager, you'll only lose 5 pounds of nitrogen.
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Burning corn stalks ????????
