Algae Green

Ascophyllum nodosum and its historical uses in Ireland:

Seaweeds have been commercially exploited for centuries on the west coast of Ireland. The first commercial use was established in the early 18th Century. This was for extraction of salts which were then used in soap and glass. The use of seaweed in this way decreased and was replaced by another application loadline extraction  which emerged in the 19th centuary. For this type of extraction, factories were built, one near Galway and another in Ramelton, Co. Donegal. By the end of the 19th Century, Ioadline sources outside  European borders forced the closing of these factories.There was then another application of seaweed introduced which was known as Alginate extraction.
Since the main commercial use of seaweeds and in particular Ascophyllum nodosum in Ireland has been the production of seaweed meal for alginate extraction in Scotland and other  European countries.

In parallel to commercial development of these seaweed applications, farmers living on the coast of Ireland, and any other countries in Europe (Scotland, England, Spain, France…) would use seaweed for a very specific application known as fertilizing!
On the west coast of Ireland, rocky soils in between granite stones would not be the most adapted soils for growing vegetables. In some areas, such as the Aran Islands (of Galway Bay), growing fields have been practically created from bringing sand and seaweeds from the shore.
These practices have been immortalized and illustrated by the movie “The Field” directed by Jim Sheridan and based on a play written by John B. Keane. In this movie, the old Irish man(The Bull) declares to his son, “God made the world and seaweed made that field” (from the movie “The field” with Richard Harris and Tom Berenger – 1990).
 
The application of seaweed in agriculture has then been heavily studied around the world. Few reviewing books have been published on it such as “Seaweed in Agriculture and Horticulture” by Stephenson (1974) and “Seaweed and plant growth” written by the Prof. Taze L. Senn. Prof. Senn has led the Department of Horiculture in Clemson University, South Carolina for more than 20 years. He has studied extensively on efficiency of seaweeds on soil amendments, foliar applications as well as the mechanisms and role of seaweed micronutrients and plant growth regulators on plants.
More recently, in the late ninties and early 21st Century, a lot of attention has been given to the role of specific compounds of the brown seaweeds, the oligosaccharides (small carbohydrates). From this work, a thesis has even been produced identifying the efficiency of several carbohydrates from seaweed as plant immune system stimulators.
Franck Hennequart, OGT’s product development manager, has produced in 2004 a review of most of the scientific studies and field trials on seaweed applications in agriculture and horticulture. This document can be provided by OGT’s team on request.
 
As scientific knowledge and analytical methods have developed, the use of seaweed based products as plant and soil conditioner has then developed in order to bring its benefits to more farmers and plant and vegetable growers. Seaweed meal (dried seaweed) as solid conditioner and slow releasing agent in liquid forms have been introduced to producers. The first liquid form commercialised back in 1949 and is still the main liquid commercial form present on the market. It is produced through a hot alkaline extraction which consists of boiling the dried meal and adding a primary alkaline agent (originally potassium hydroxide). This disrupts the membrane and the cells of the seaweed to release the components. Multiple variations are based on the seaweed species used, the original harvesting state of the seaweed, the drying technique of the meal, the alkaline agent used, the extraction temperature, the dry matter content etc…are now co-existing on the market.
As technology and scientific knowledge on both seaweeds and plants has continued to develop in the past 15 years, a new generation of seaweed liquid extract has appeared on the market, the cold seaweed extracts. The objective in these extracts is to keep the processing temperature as low as possible in order to produce a liquid which retains, as much as possible, the level and biochemical integrity of the natural components of the original seaweed.
 
AlgaeGreen range of liquid products is produced in this philosophy using a cold processing line.