The product from the burning of a combination of carbonaceous materials.

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Additional information

Wood ash decreases soil acidity and can therefore change soil microbial activity, biomass and the composition of microbial and other soil dwelling organism communities. Since enchytraieds, as well as various other soil fauna, feed upon microbes, wood ash has the potential to indirectly affect the feeding activities of soil fauna. The disappearance of key functional species (like C. sphagnetorum in acid forest soils) or groups does not, however, necessarily result in perpetual losses of fundamentally important ecosystem-level functions provided that a new, hitherto non-existing functional species can invade the disturbed area. Toxicity of ash on terrestrial plants has been documented to occur at a minor scale. Bioaccumulation of ash-derived metals in trees which were grown on ash-containing sites was not observed. Notably, ash amendment into soil did not caused adverse effects in the field after the medium term monitoring, only some mushroom species were noted to have increased concentrations of Mn and temporarily increased As and Cr concentrations were observed in berries. Many soil organisms are of omnivorous nature and share a high degree of functional redundancy. Therefore, the ash amendment induced changes in the structure and biomass of soil fauna are usually not reflected as changes in system functioning. Moreover, in an experiment carried out with earthworms exposed to fly ash, no mortality or significant change in the analyzed metal concentrations of earthworm tissue after 30 days of fly ash exposure was observed. Based on current toxicological data, adverse effects on birds are not assumed.