Seaweed

[nomolos]

About 5 years ago there was a discussion on the old board about the benefits of seaweed. So on the weekend I got some seaweed, washed it chopped it and spread i aroud the palms - who else uses it

Pic of washed seaweed ready for chopping

[Tyrone]

Excellent stuff to build up sandy soil. I used it on my mother-in-laws palm garden. I washed the salt off, used it as mulch then put a heap of cow manure over it. 6 months later and the sand had a thick black humus layer. The palms went nuts too.

Best regards

Tyrone

[nomolos]

Excellent stuff to build up sandy soil. I used it on my mother-in-laws palm garden. I washed the salt off, used it as mulch then put a heap of cow manure over it. 6 months later and the sand had a thick black humus layer. The palms went nuts too.

Best regards

Tyrone

Sounds good Tyrone

[Walter John]

I've used seaweed juice concentrate and I did spread sea grass around my coconut palms, worked a treat. Highly recommended.

[Peter]

Last year I started using liquid kelp every few weeks as a foliar spray-seemed to work well.

[John in Andalucia]

I found a good liquid seaweed fertilizer at my local garden centre. I use it every day as a foliar spray on my seedlings. In Spanish it's called, "algas marinas" and it's the only "organic" one I can find, being 80% blended seaweed. It looks like pea soup, and smells like the beach at low tide, unsurprisingly.

[Bennz]

Excellent stuff to build up sandy soil. I used it on my mother-in-laws palm garden. I washed the salt off, used it as mulch then put a heap of cow manure over it. 6 months later and the sand had a thick black humus layer. The palms went nuts too.

Best regards

Tyrone

Why wash the salt off? Salt is essential nutrient, and all the trace elements in seawater are vital. I use it without washing, in same way as you. I've also experimented with putting seawater into the water supply to add nutrients, looking good so far. Liquid cow manure plus seawater makes a pretty potent fert.

[nomolos]

Excellent stuff to build up sandy soil. I used it on my mother-in-laws palm garden. I washed the salt off, used it as mulch then put a heap of cow manure over it. 6 months later and the sand had a thick black humus layer. The palms went nuts too.

Best regards

Tyrone

Why wash the salt off? Salt is essential nutrient, and all the trace elements in seawater are vital. I use it without washing, in same way as you. I've also experimented with putting seawater into the water supply to add nutrients, looking good so far. Liquid cow manure plus seawater makes a pretty potent fert.

Would not the salt be toxic to the plants?

[Jonathan]

Sol,

My irrigagation water is nearly seawater at the moment and it dosn't seem to be affecting the palms in ground.....yet.

Ben is right about trace elements - but you would have to check the background sodium levels in your soil.

Our sand down here is quite high in sodium- about 3.2% (1.5% would be better), yours may be similar, I suspect, but if you water deeply with fresh water it will leach the salt out pretty well anyway.

Another argument is that slightly higher salt levels can thicken the cell walls and provide greater frost resistance, and we're heading in to winter...

Cheers,

Jonathan

[Mark Heath]

Thanks guys!!!

Great thread!!! I can get a bunch of seaweed for my compost heap!!! Good idea!!

I usually produce about ten yards of compost every two years for my palms. I have about 5 yards at the moment but when that breaks down it will be about 2 yards, but i am nowhere near done yet!!!!

[Tyrone]

Coastal sands in Oz and even a great deal of inland Oz soils already have high salt oncentrations, and generally you're trying to keep them down. I'd imagine it would be different in NZ with the high quality volcanic soils you have, as for some plants a bit of salt wouldn't hurt. I washed the seaweed, but not too thoroughly before I put it on the garden. Different plants have different salt tolerance. You can't grow strawberries where there is salt, but coconuts thrive on it, they even need it. I put a few applications of rock salt on my coconut during the growing season, but I wouldn't do that to any other part of the garden. Coconuts are a weird exception to the general rule.

Best regards

Tyrone

Excellent stuff to build up sandy soil. I used it on my mother-in-laws palm garden. I washed the salt off, used it as mulch then put a heap of cow manure over it. 6 months later and the sand had a thick black humus layer. The palms went nuts too.

Best regards

Tyrone

Why wash the salt off? Salt is essential nutrient, and all the trace elements in seawater are vital. I use it without washing, in same way as you. I've also experimented with putting seawater into the water supply to add nutrients, looking good so far. Liquid cow manure plus seawater makes a pretty potent fert.

Would not the salt be toxic to the plants?

[Alicehunter2000]

That looks like kelp to me...........would sargassum grass (Gulf Coast seaweed) work. Some times of the year we have tons of it stinking up our beaches.

[_Keith]

That looks like kelp to me...........would sargassum grass (Gulf Coast seaweed) work. Some times of the year we have tons of it stinking up our beaches.

Should have similar micro-nutrients, I would think. Maybe when I come your way on vacation this year again, I'll load up the truck. :-)

[Kris]

Dear Sol

Nice topic,for us in india we get this stuff in a granulated form and i have tried this on all our plants the results are stunning.And the CIDP's & Corypha's respond fentastically when fed with seaweed suppliments and full sunlight.

Love,

Kris

[Bennz]

Would not the salt be toxic to the plants?

I've been experimenting. Parajubaea handle about 50% above-tide sea-sand in media. Ceroxylon, Archontophoenix, Rhopalostylis handle slightly higher, haven't quantitfied it yet. Some Dypsis die with any salt (onilaheniss). Acacia dealbata is my true hero so far, grows VERY WELL in pure sea sand taken from below the high tide mark.

My experiments started from the observation that sheep grazing coastal soils are healthier than those even a couple kms inland. I have applied pure sea salt to pastures and had excellent results. I have experimented with hydroponic vegies using seawater plus 50ppmN from Clacium Nitrate as sole nutirent source, they grow well (EC at around 2). Mangos in hydroponic seawater are ok too, but need water changed at least monthly in passive hydro.

I think adding seawater to palm irrigation to about EC 0.5 would be very helpful in many areas, as the salt and trace elements are very useful nutrients, already in 'perfect' natural balance. Only appropriate to lower pH and low Na soil areas of course.

Cheers,

Ben

[Jonathan]

Ben, you are a truly radical man...but I like your way of thinking!

I'm not surprised that A. dealbata is a hero for you....I have a 2 or 3 acre native forest of the stuff, and its indestructable. Growing 150 metres from the beach on pure dune sand, the forest is slowly creeping its way accross the paddock - dying at one end and growing at the other. I plan to plant a firewood stand of mixed Eucalypts and Allocasuarinas at the retreating end to take advantage of the excess nitrogen as the roots break down. One thing I would say about dealbata is that it will out-compete anything you plant under it....on my dry sand it grows as a 5m high densely suckering scrub and sucks all available moisture from the soil. However in the wetter parts of Tasmania it becomes a 20m forest tree.

My palms only need to get their feet down 3m to be into 'salt enhanced ground water'...or salty brine! If only we had more rain....

Keith - sea grass has nowhere near the micronutrient load that kelp has, but it is still a very good mulch, and will add valuable organic matter to sandy soils.

Cheers,

Jonathan

[Gileno Machado]

I usually collect a lot of seaweed (sargaço, as we call) in August (when the stream brings it ashore) and pile it up exposed to full sun up until february when I use it raw, for some of the coconut trees. No need to wash the salt out here. I've noticed that the fruit production increases considerably and also the taste of the water is excellent...

I haven't tried it much with my other palms (no much spare seaweed available) but I'm planning to do so this year.

[JD in the OC]

This is the cheapest, easiest way to use kelp: http://www.super-grow.biz/Kelp.jsp

I highly recommend the company. They are in Canada.