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Austria

I live at Lake Constance and will have the possibility to take away all the tons of fresh water seaweed, a special boat called the "See-Kuh" (=sea-cow) will harvest. Is this just as good as any other plant/green fertilizer or will it be as favourable as real seaweed/algae from the sea?

Any ideas?

7/1/2005 5:31:44 AM

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Heino, I would compost it as much as you can get it... a great compost for free.

7/1/2005 6:02:21 AM

Cologne / Germany

I would also compost it. However it won´t have the same effect as being harvested in the sea (salt water). Commercial fertilizers are from algae / seaweed harvested in the North Atlantic.

7/1/2005 6:37:20 AM

Knopp, Germany

I agree, get as much as you can and let it compost till next year. It should be great for adding organic matter to your patch. One advantage of fresh water seaweed is that you will not have to clean all of the high salt content out of it. Saves a lot of work.

7/1/2005 6:50:33 AM

Austria

Thank your for your answers. I guess it is hard to tell, if and how big the difference (if any) to any other plants wastes like mowed lawn actually is. Actually what uis going to be harvested are waterplants with algae among them. Not the same as the "Braunalge" in the sea, but algae nevertheless. Just read an article of the Lake Constance algae plague in the 70`s. It will be worth trying. Won`t be able to compost all of it, it would raise the whole lot of land, where the house of my parents is for about a meter - lol! I`ll fill up our empty compost piles anyway. A friend of mine, who helps me fixing up my boat is a good diver, said, we are going to take one of his working boats and harvest a few 100 kilos while diving, should be good fun.

7/1/2005 8:44:05 AM