coastal farmers and seaweed fertiliser

lalababa

I wonder for the coastal farmers, as fertiliser prices increase would seaweed collected from shore esp. after a storm, and spread whole during the winter to rot in fields be much or any advantage cost wise?? Like they did in the old days. 'God made the world but seaweed made the field ' etc.

Collecting and spreading would be laboursome to say the least! And how much would one need?
From what google says seaweed contains % .3N , .1P , 1K, and all the trace elements. Esp. for sodium, calcium,magnesium.
I think I remember that farmers in the Channel Islands used to spread it every 5ish years.
Anyway any thoughts?

blue5000

Labour is the big problem alright.
I give seaweed meal to dry cows before calving, mainly to help prevent iodine deficiency in calves and I think it also gets calves up sucking fast.

Anyway this year I spread the slurry from the dry cows before ploughing for barley, the difference in the barley where slurry went out and the half a field that didn't get it was unbelievable earlier on when I top dressed the barley. I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of it, the barley was much greener and taller.

Now it might have been the slurry on it's own, but I reckon the trace elements fed to the cows in the seaweed meal had a knock on beneficial effect on the barley. Haven't cut it yet.

Conmaicne Mara

I'm right beside the sea but have no easy way of gathering and spreading. When I do, I will spread entire farm or as much as I can. It's always been used on vegetable gardens. But, I haven't really heard of it being used on farmland. It can only be a good thing for the soil.

MFdaveIreland

Hi there. They used to use sea weed on the fields round the county down coast until it became illegal. Im pretty sure there are regulations to prevent you from taking seaweed of the beach etc. doesnt make sense as its a natural resource but seems to be the law. Have a look for yourselves on google etc.

truedoom

you'd need to collect an awful lot of it for a field.

It does work very well on small vegetable crops though, my folks did it at the start of the summer in their little veggie garden, and the veg is thriving

Bodacious

lalababa wrote: »

I wonder for the coastal farmers, as fertiliser prices increase would seaweed collected from shore esp. after a storm, and spread whole during the winter to rot in fields be much or any advantage cost wise?? Like they did in the old days. 'God made the world but seaweed made the field ' etc.

Collecting and spreading would be laboursome to say the least! And how much would one need?
From what google says seaweed contains % .3N , .1P , 1K, and all the trace elements. Esp. for sodium, calcium,magnesium.
I think I remember that farmers in the Channel Islands used to spread it every 5ish years.
Anyway any thoughts?

I live by the sea and aim to do one field or part of each year.

Big strand these days and big rolls of clean drift weed ... Done 4 trailers today .. The key is to handle it once !

I go out on strand with quad and trailer 6ft x 4ft single axel low car trailer, tramp it and build your load right and straight to field and throw it off with fork ... It's great stuff and next spring you will see the cows/ calves eating any crisp bit that is left ... They love it


Other option (s)

Lad I know forks it into side slinger muck spreader

Or I could stack it up on beach in large heap and get lad with front loader / spreader but to be honest it's awful easy to spread the clean , short stemmed drift weed when it comes in like that... If it starts to rot in heap it gets slushy and messy .. No point bringing anything on trailer that has any dirt or litter in it as you will be picking it up next spring !