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Pleasant Hill, Or

I've seen references to drench or foliar feeding kelp or sea weed. The benefits and advantages of these amendments are talked about as if they are the same. Are they? Is one better than the other, are they really interchangeable?

Thad

2/22/2007 11:55:32 AM

Montoursville, PA

Generally kelp meal is used in the ground while dehydrated kelp or liquid kelp is used for foliar feeding. Sometimes kelp and fish liquids are in the same liquid product.
....Into the soil and foliar are not the same by any means but the benefits derived from the two methods of use would be the same. A lot of us do both soil and foliar kelp feeding. Some feel that the combination of these two techniques is the best single product use we have available.

2/22/2007 6:12:14 PM

President - GPC

Does anyone find thatany of the Kelp or seaweed juices has lots of Potassium in it?

2/23/2007 8:46:17 AM

southwest MO

Yes they generally have lots of K.

2/23/2007 9:39:29 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

The terms "seaweed" & "kelp" mean more or less the same thing & might be used interchangeably in certain areas. Since I've always lived in coastal communities I have an opinion with local flavor.

"Kelp" is thought to be the larger leaves that grow farther from shore in the North Atlantic. These leaves may be many feet in length & often grow in long strips like bed sheets. So far as I know, very few boats go out just to harvest kelp. I think that fishing trawlers resort to this "catch" if the fishing stinks. I could be wrong about this.

"Seaweed" is all of the smaller leaved varieties that grow on rocks near shore in warmer waters. The stuff I find in the shallow Long Island Sound is probably close in chemical analysis but is not abundant enough to make commercial harvest worthwhile.

*IF* the packager/merchant is not spinning yarn for marketing purposes, I believe you'll find that true North Atlantic Kelp is most desirable since it grows in cleaner more nutrient rich waters. The trouble is the distance needed to reach these waters adds to the expense. I've also heard that the natural auxins & gibberellins (hormones) are greater in the Kelp grown in the North Atlantic.

Is this true? Who knows. The "kelp industry" is not bound by law to guarantee the hormone analysis & they haven't seen the potential economic return of investing in this expense. This might just be marketing hype.

continued

2/23/2007 11:07:11 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I'm sure all seaweed contains at least some hormones & for sure they're all rich in potassium.

Bagged Kelp MEALS are usually soil applied where the meal also provides some benefit to the soil's physical structure. The more costly soluble powders & liquids are reserved for foliar treatments where the hormonal influence is probably the greatest benefit to the plants. The marketers claim that the act of making the solubles concentrates the homones. It probably does.

There is no reason the sprayable forms like Neptune's can't be drenched into the soil. If granular meals weren't used there would probably be some benefit especially where potash levels are slipping & organic matter is low. But pound for pound, the granular meals are less costly at delivering an equal amount of potassium. Less processing expense.

2/23/2007 11:07:16 AM

Montoursville, PA

Want the complete story go to North American Kelp web site.

2/23/2007 12:14:58 PM

Mill Bay, British Columbia

Kelp - Any of various brown, often very large seaweeds that grow in colder ocean regions. Kelps are varieties of brown algae of the order Laminariales, with some species growing over 61 m (200 ft) long. Kelps are harvested as food (primarily in eastern Asia), as fertilizer, and for their sodium and potassium salts, used in industrial processes. Kelps are also a source of thickening agents and colloid stabilizers used in many commercial products.

Seaweed - Any of various red, green, or brown algae that live in ocean waters. Some species of seaweed are free-floating, while others are attached to the ocean bottom. Seaweed range from the size of a pinhead to having large fronds (such as those of many kelps) that can be as much as 30.5 m (100 ft) in length. Certain species are used for food (such as nori) and fertilizer, and others are harvested for carrageenan and other substances used as thickening, stabilizing, emulsifying, or suspending agents in industrial, pharmaceutical, and food products. Seaweed is also a natural source of the element iodine, which is otherwise found only in very small amounts.

2/24/2007 11:42:50 AM