POLK COUNTY, Fla. – On a warm morning in Polk County, heavy equipment hummed through rows of citrus as a mobile carbonizer known as a “Tigercat” converted trees and grove debris into biochar — a porous, charcoal-like material that project leaders say could help hold water and nutrients in sandy Florida soils, reduce greenhouse emissions from burning, and even filter polluted water.

The project, operated on a 35-acre pilot site donated by a local grower, is testing whether woody waste from dying citrus groves can be turned in place into a stable carbon product and then used to improve soil and storm water runoff. The Tigercat is set up in a decommissioned orange grove. (WKMG-TV)

“We cleared the whole thing in three days,” said Zach Farr, CEO of Biotech Applied Research , describing

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