Liquid fertiliser / bio-stimulant

You can buy Welsh grown seaweed fertiliser from Wales’ first seaweed farm Câr-Y-Môr in Sir Benfro here.

Image: Câr-Y-Môr

Farmers need an alternative to expensive, unsustainable, synthetic fertilisers

In Wales, seaweed has been used for centuries as a fertiliser. Using it on plants enhances nutrient uptake, improves plant health and boosts stress resistance. It provides essential macro-nutrients such as phosphate and potassium, as well as micronutrients iron, manganese, zinc, copper, calcium and boron.

It also contains natural growth hormones; auxin, cytokinin, abscisic acid, gibberellin and other active substances such as polysaccharides, betaine, sugar alcohol and phenolic compounds.

Seaweed fertiliser has a number of other benefits:

• it can be grown here in Wales and doesn't involve reliance on global markets, making our food system more resilient.

• recently the price of synthetic Haber-Bosch fertiliser (which converts hydrogen and nitrogen to ammonia) has shot through the roof due to high energy costs and supply issues. Farmers need better alternatives.

• unlike the Haber-Bosch process, it's made with relatively little energy, which is good news for climate change.

• it also helps nitrogen retention within the soil. So it's better for waterways, as run-off of excess synthetic fertiliser can create toxic algal blooms, damaging streams, rivers and oceans.

• it's a lot safer (the Beirut explosion was caused by bad fertiliser storage, killing 218 people) and is non-toxic.

• it can be made using the excess waste from seaweed processing, after more valuable parts of the algae are removed.

References:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2019.00655/full

Good guide to making your own for home use: https://www.milkwood.net/2016/07/04/making-seaweed-fertilizer-added-nettles-comfrey-borage/

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