Biopunk Greenhouse: Trees, Biochar, and Open Plant Biotechnology
Spend an afternoon inside Carbocene’s working Oakland greenhouse and garden. We will propagate plants, make biochar, care for a living research collection, and explore how plant biotechnology can be practiced outside the usual boundaries of companies and universities.
This is a weekly Saturday open greenhouse. Carbocene hosts an informal working session most Saturdays from 3:00–7:00 p.m. for plant propagation, greenhouse care, biochar making, research discussion, and shared experimentation. Each week is listed as a separate Luma event so attendance and occasional schedule changes can be managed individually. Please confirm the date shown on the specific event before attending.
Future Saturday sessions are open for advance registration. Each week has a separate event page, so please register for the specific date or dates you plan to attend. You are welcome to join once, return regularly, or choose whichever Saturdays fit your schedule.
Carbocene Industries is an independent nonprofit research organization preserving and advancing biological climate work that might otherwise be lost when funding ends or institutions change direction.
The greenhouse includes a noncommercial research collection of photosynthesis-enhanced poplar, alongside propagation work, experimental soils, biochar systems, and early research connected to improved photosynthesis, bamboo biotechnology, and durable plant materials.
This is not a formal lecture or a polished demonstration garden. It is a working research and stewardship site. Each gathering combines teaching, discussion, and practical work based on what the plants and projects need that week.
No laboratory, gardening, or biotechnology background is required.
What we will do
Activities vary by season and may include:
Preparing and rooting plant cuttings
Repotting, pruning, labeling, and caring for research plants
Comparing plant growth, stress, rooting, and recovery
Making small batches of biochar
Preparing biochar for use in soil
Working with compost, experimental growing media, and coppice systems
Building simple structures from reeds, fibers, and locally available plant material
Discussing tissue culture, plant transformation, construct design, and greenhouse research
Documenting plants and experiments so the work can continue over time
Returning participants can follow the same plants and projects across multiple gatherings.
Plant propagation
We will teach the practical biology of producing new plants from cuttings, including:
Selecting healthy stems and nodes
Preparing cuttings
Choosing rooting media
Managing moisture, humidity, light, and temperature
Using rooting hormones
Recognizing callus, roots, stress, and contamination
Moving rooted plants into soil
Keeping useful records across a living collection
These techniques apply well beyond poplar and are useful for gardeners, restoration practitioners, community biologists, and anyone interested in maintaining unusual plant material.
Biochar and biological carbon storage
Biochar is produced by heating plant material under limited oxygen rather than allowing it to burn completely.
We will discuss and, when conditions permit, demonstrate:
The difference between combustion and pyrolysis
How feedstock and temperature affect the resulting material
Why fresh biochar is often prepared or “charged” before being added to soil
The relationship between biochar, soil biology, nutrient retention, and water
Coppice systems and repeated biomass harvest
The role of durable plant materials in longer-term carbon storage
The goal is not simply to present biochar as a climate product, but to understand it as part of a larger biological system involving plants, soils, decomposition, materials, and repeated stewardship.
Why Carbocene exists
Living biological research cannot be preserved as files alone.
It depends on plants, tissue, greenhouse space, protocols, seasonal observation, technical memory, and people willing to continue caring for an experiment after the original institution has moved on.
Carbocene was created to provide a durable nonprofit home for this kind of work.
The Oakland greenhouse serves as a research site, propagation facility, teaching space, and living archive. These gatherings invite people to participate not only as an audience, but as part of a community learning how biological technology can be maintained, understood, and responsibly extended.
Who should come
The event is intended for a mixed community, including:
Counter Culture Labs members
Biohackers and community biologists
Frontier Tower residents and collaborators
Plant scientists and synthetic biologists
Gardeners, growers, and restoration practitioners
Climate and materials researchers
Artists working with living systems, pigments, fibers, or biomaterials
Engineers and builders interested in bamboo, wood, biochar, or biological production
Curious people with no previous technical experience
Experts are encouraged to bring their knowledge and difficult questions. Beginners are encouraged to come without worrying about whether they know enough.
Practical details
The event takes place at a working outdoor garden and greenhouse in Oakland.
Wear clothing and closed-toe shoes that can handle soil, water, smoke, and plant material.
Useful things to bring:
Water
Work gloves
A notebook or phone for notes and photographs
Dry, untreated woody plant material for the biochar system
Questions, project ideas, or plant materials you would like to discuss
Please do not bring painted, pressure-treated, glued, or chemically contaminated wood.
Supporting the work
Suggested donation: $25
Your contribution supports greenhouse care, preservation of living research material, and Carbocene’s public biotechnology programming. Please pay what you can; no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Plant stewardship placements, when available, are arranged separately. They are not included with registration and are not conditioned on making a donation.
Come ready to get your hands dirty, learn practical techniques, and spend time with biological technologies that are still alive, unfinished, and open to participation.