What is Seaweed Fertilizer?
Seaweed fertilizer, a marine biological product, processed seaweed through the application of chemical, physical, biological, and other technologies. It contains plant hormones, alginate, fucoidan, brown alga polyphenols, and amino acids unique to seaweed organisms, iodine, mannitol, minerals, and other seaweed active substances.
It not only can provide nutrients for crop growth, but it also can increase crop yields and improve the quality of fruits and vegetables through mechanisms such as improving soil, triggering seed germination, promoting rooting and crop growth, and preserving flowers and fruits. Its application value in agricultural production is high.
What is the resource of seaweed fertilizer?
Seaweed is widely distributed in vast oceans around the world. There are large amounts of biologically active substances in the seaweed, marine macroalgae such as Ascophylla nodosum, macroalgae, and kelp have long been used in agricultural production around the world.
Compared with terrestrial plants, seaweed has incomparable advantages that contain more than 40 kinds of mineral elements such as K, Mg, Zn, Ca, Fe, etc. Besides, it also has rich plant growth regulators such as seaweed polysaccharides, proteins, polyphenolic amino acids, highly unsaturated fatty acids, and vitamins, which can regulate the balance of endogenous hormones in plants, stimulate the production of non-specific active factors in plants and promote crop growth. Moreover, it can not only improve fertilizer utilization and enhance crop photosynthesis but also enhance crop resistance to drought, cold, and disease, promote early maturity of crops, increase flower and fruit setting rates, improve quality, and increase output.
History of Seaweed fertilizer
1. First Stage
Since ancient Roman times, seaweed has been used in agricultural production, they added seaweed to the soil directly or used it as compost to improve the soil.
The ancient British also added seaweed to the soil as fertilizer. They mixed seaweed with the soil directly or mixed seaweed with straw, peat or organic matter to make fertilizer.
2. Second stage
In the mid-12th century, seaweed was widely used as fertilizer in some European coastal countries such as Britain, France, and Norway. In the 16th century, people in Canada, France, Japan, and other places collected seaweed to make compost. People in some areas like South Wales, England, and Germany used rotten seaweed or seaweed ash from the shore to grow various crops, with good results.
By the 17th century, the value of seaweed fertilizer was recognized by the French government which explicitly stipulated the harvesting time and collection conditions of seaweed in coastal areas, and vigorously promoted seaweed as soil fertilizer.
3. Third Stage
In 1949, the UK launched a new product of seaweed fertilizer - seaweed liquid fertilizer, which opened a new chapter in seaweed fertilizer. By the 1980s and 1990s, seaweed fertilizer, as a natural fertilizer, had received unprecedented attention and development in developed countries in Europe and the United States.
In 1949, the British Dr. Milton invented the technology of liquefying seaweed to make fertilizer. (This is where maxicrop seaweed fertilizer was born.) According to Dr. Milton's report, if seaweed is used in the soil directly, its inhibitory effect on plant growth will last for 15 weeks, even if the seaweed is finely ground.
Except for the Maxicrop brand of seaweed liquid fertilizer, there are some other companies that have also begun to commercially produce seaweed fertilizer. Around 1962, Algea (now Valagro) in Norway used an alkaline process to prepare seaweed fertilizer from Ascophyllum nodosum which is similar to Maxicrop. In the early 1970s, France developed a unique method of cryogenically freezing ground seaweed, which was later commercialized by the company Goemar. In the 1990s, the Canadian company Acadian Seaplants began commercially producing seaweed extracts from Ascophyllum nodosum. Australia also began the production and application of seaweed fertilizer in the 1970s.
4. Current Situation
Nowadays, there are approximately 550,000 tons of seaweed are used to produce seaweed fertilizer globally each year. After more than half a century of innovative development, the variety of seaweed fertilizer products is increasing, and the quality is improving day by day, which has attracted people's attention to agricultural production.
It has gradually become a hot topic that all the research, development, and application of seaweed fertilizers. The application of seaweed extracts in agricultural production has been recognized by many countries and international organizations like North American OMIR certification, EU IMO certification, etc. They clearly allow that seaweed biological products to be used as soil improvement substances and fertilizers, and it also be allowed to be used to control crop diseases and pests. Prevention and control as well as livestock and poultry feed additives.
With the popularization and the expansion of the market scale of seaweed and seaweed extracts in agricultural production, the production and application technology of seaweed fertilizers have also been improved, and at the same time, the production efficiency and application efficacy have also been improved. In 2006, the global market size of seaweed biological products was approximately 15 million tons approximately US$59.93 billion. According to the statistics of New Ag International magazine of the seaweed fertilizer market with seaweed as the main raw material, the economic value of seaweed fertilizer in the European market in 2012 was about 2 to 4 billion euros, and the global market was at least 8 billion euros, accounting for the entire agricultural input market. There is huge space for seaweed fertilizer development because it accounts for 2% of the total(including the sterilizing and sterilizing fertilizer market).
In the 21st century, the rapid development of the field of biostimulants has provided a new direction for the application of seaweed in agricultural production. Facing the future, large-scale production and application of seaweed fertilizers and biostimulants prepared with seaweed as raw materials are conducive to the in-depth development and comprehensive utilization of seaweed biological resources, promote the production of green organic food, ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products, promote farmers' income and agricultural efficiency, improve and protect the ecological environment.