The Benefits of Seaweed in Agriculture

Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the AEA webinar. Glad to have you here tonight. So our discussion tonight is going to focus specifically on seaweeds and some of the things that we've observed and that we've learned about seaweeds, how to use them, where to use them effectively, what they can do. I'm going to keep the discussion quite brief and succinct and short and to the point. If you have any questions about seaweeds, anything that you'd like for me to talk about, or anything that you'd like to ask about, you can type those questions into the Q and A box, which if you're on a computer, should be on the bottom center of your screen. And if you're on a phone, I think it's also on the lower left hand side or somewhere in there, you can type in questions on your Q and A. So, thinking about seaweeds, the topic for the webinar tonight is the benefit of seaweed in agriculture. The benefits of seaweed in agriculture. And the reality is that when you begin looking at all of the research that has been conducted on seaweeds and all of the really powerful benefits that can be achieved, you have to ask, the question is why is not everyone using seaweed? And the good news is that more and more people are using seaweeds. The benefits are being widely recognized. Lots of people are beginning to use them as foliar sprays and in irrigation systems. But there are still, they're still not being the benefits that they're capable of are still not being realized by many growers. So when we look at what can be achieved with seaweeds, within the nutritional protocols that we put together at aea, we include our product, see stem, pretty much across the board every time we put on a foliar application and every time that we do anything to the soil, we tend to include seastem. And I want to talk about, in a moment about some of the key pieces that we really find benefits from. But when we look at the studies that show benefits from seaweed, there's this long list, really long list of very well demonstrated benefits.

So.

It'S been shown to contain over 70 different minerals and a whole host of different vitamins and enzymes. And you might say, well, but that's true of ocean minerals and rock powders and many other pieces as well. But there's a key difference here in that the minerals within seaweed have already been digested and absorbed by a plant, which means they're extremely bioavailable. And we find that very small quantities, in this case milligrams of an active ingredient of an active mineral can produce a very strong plant response much more quickly than minerals in other forms because they're already in an organic chelate form that plants can absorb very quickly. We find that seaweed promotes additional budding and the development of additional reproductive tissue. So we get a lot more reproductive buds. This is actually one of the major uses that we use seaweeds for and that many growers use seaweeds for is to get more reproductive buds. It extends the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, increases the nutrient uptake and protein content of a crop. Protein content for some crops is a really big deal, particularly if we're talking wheat production. Some of those improves resistance of plants to frost and disease. So we've actually, with a high quality seaweed, we've observed that we can get as much as a 3 to a 4 degree Fahrenheit gain in freeze resistance on a given crop when using seaweeds. So if you have a crop that is susceptible to freezing at, let's say 29 degrees Fahrenheit, you can reduce that by about 3 degrees down to about 26 degrees Fahrenheit. So quite a substantial drop in frost susceptibility. Seaweeds can increase the uptake of minerals from the soil, Bolster resistance to stress conditions, promote vigorous growth, deter pests and diseases. It contains almost every micronutrient. A fully chelated form acts as a soil conditioner. This is actually a very important piece. At many times growers find that soils underneath their plastic mulch are actually softer than where they're not in between the mulch. And there's a number of different reasons for that, But I strongly believe that one of the contributing factors in many cases is because of the seaweeds that have been applied in the fertigation system. Supports a larger plant root biomass, which is one reason why many growers use it as transplant solution for seedling development. Support strong plant root growth, high survival rates. We see reduced transplant shock. Increases chlorophyll content, Regulates plant growth. It has been documented to deter green flies and whiteflies. Organically, and particularly for whiteflies, this is quite a big deal. Provides it can provide both auxins and cytokines, the phallus speed, speed of growth, root growth. It assists plants the formation of their own auxins. There's this long list and particularly when we drop down to the bottom of the list, actually there's a couple points here. Betaine's the betaine osmoregulators that can increase water uptake in a plant and can give us additional drought resilience and drought stress, increase seed germination establishment, increased resistance to biotic and abiotic stress, and enhanced post harvest shelf life, which is really important, particularly when we're thinking about greens such as salad greens, cut flowers, etc. Different types of plants. We can have a really substantial impact on leaf crispness and shelf stability with a variety of these different plants. So we look at all this and we think that the thought that comes to mind is why would not all growers be using seaweeds? If these products are truly that effective and they have the capacity and the capability of delivering all of these results, then why isn't everyone using them and why isn't everyone using a lot more of them? And a part of the answer for that question is that these benefits, all these benefits that are on this list, and by the way, all the benefits.

That I listed are.

Documented and have been documented in peer reviewed, published research and published literature which we have the references for. We'll share the references for on the slide deck after this webinar. So all of those are very well documented, they've all been peer reviewed, they've all been observed to function very reliably. So all these benefits exist. Why isn't everyone using them? And part of the reason is because many of these benefits can be greatly reduced or even lost to some degree, or perhaps even entirely lost when seaweeds are extracted with an alkali extraction process. So one of the key foundational pieces that we have discussed at AEA and have attempted to develop and build our products around is the idea that products should always enhance both enhance biology and enhance plants as well. They should not have an enhancing effect on biology and a suppressive effect on plants or vice versa. And so the challenge is that today there are quite a number of nutrient products available which particularly simple ion solutions.

Which can give us a very strong.

Plant growth response, but are actually very suppressive to soil biology. And this is one of the challenges with this is one of several challenges with an alkali extraction process or chemical extraction process is that we end up with a liquid seaweed or a dry powder seaweed that has a higher ph, let's say a ph anywhere from can be as low as 8 in some products up to a high of 12 that we've observed between 8 and 10 is most common. And so these high ph seaweed solutions are extracted using usually potassium hydroxide. And this is a problem, and this is a challenge because potassium hydroxide has a very strong suppressive effect on soil biology as well as the biology within the seaweed solution, which is actually one of the things that allows the seaweed solutions to remain completely sterile and to not have any biological activity happening while they're in the container in the jug is the high concentrations of the potassium hydroxide, the alkali extraction agent. So when we don't produce, when we look at the chemical extraction process, most of the seaweeds that are available in the marketplace today are extracted using an alkali extraction agent, potassium hydroxide. And what this looks like is we have a vat container with a potassium hydroxide solution. It has a pH of about 12 to 13. And the seaweed is decomposed in this liquid material, in this alkali liquid. And when the decomposition or the degradation is complete and all the cells have been metabolized, everything has been broken down, then the material, the liquid material, is pulled off and the ph is slightly reduced with an acid, sometimes using, most commonly using acetic acid, but sometimes others as. And that material is then sold as a liquid seaweed. And in the cases of a dry powder seaweed, usually that material is then dried down either by spray drying or freeze drying, and turned into a dry soluble powder that can now be mixed into a spray solution. The challenge with this process is I mentioned one challenge from a biological effectiveness or a suppressing biology effect, which in the case of seaweed actually is fairly.

Small when it's applied to the soil.

To plants, because the quantity of product that we're applying is relatively small. So the potassium hydroxide doesn't have a huge effect if you're applying a couple of quarts of product on a per acre basis. But where it does have a very significant effect is that the potassium hydroxide during the alkali extraction process substantially denatures many of these compounds that are known to give the physiological plant responses that we're looking for. For example, the BTN osmoregulators that are known to provide increased drought stress and drought resilience are still present, can still be present when you have a liquid seaweed that has been extracted with alkali. But only a much smaller number, only a small percentage of the osmoregulators that are present actually survive the alkali extraction process. And so you end up with a material that has been greatly weakened and no longer has the effectiveness of the original parent material. And that same holds true of many different vitamins and the enzymes and many of the different biological substances that are present within the original parent seaweed material. And this is true irregardless of whether the seaweed that we're talking about is kelp, as in Ascophyllum nodosum, whether it's Lemonaria digitata, whether it's bladder rack. It can be any one of the dozens of different types of kelp that are used in agriculture systems. And all of them are going to be degraded because of this chemical extraction process. So what we have done differently at AEA is to not use the chemical extraction process and instead extract products mechanically so that we still have all the vitamins and all the enzymes and all of the original parent material that can produce the greatest physiological response in plants. And it does produce a very substantial response. One of the things that seaweeds are also known for, they're also documented, is actually triggering a SAR reaction in plants. So when applied to the root system, they are known to induce a systemic acquired resistance response, which is essentially triggering an immune reaction within the plant.

So seaweeds can not only have all.

These other benefits that we described, but they can actually help to increase plant immunity as well. And that response, we find, is much greater when we have the whole parent material and not an alkali extraction process, base material. So what we have done is to not have an alkali extraction and instead try to keep that parent material alive, which produces its whole own set of challenges. Because now when you have a material that hasn't been denatured, then by the counter of. Part of that is that it means it, it also is still alive. It still contains all the enzymes, it still contains all the vitamins, it still contains all these amino acids and proteins.

In an undernatured form, which means that.

It'S a very good substrate for biology to work in, which has been one of the things that we have worked with a lot is to develop organic substances that can suppress biology through, from becoming very bioactive while the seaweed is still in the container. And then when diluted out in water and applied into the field, the bio suppressants can then are diluted enough that biology can really take over and do the job that it does so well. So it's really interesting that on one hand you have seaweed products which promote life and grow, want to grow very vigorously and very abundantly. And on the other hand, you have materials which are essentially completely sterile and don't contain any living biology at all. So our material that many of you are familiar with and have been using is what we have called a sea stem. Sea stem contains a couple of different.

Species of kelp, a couple different species.

Of seaweeds, and all of them have been cold processed and deliver the effect that we're looking for from a disease resistance and an immune triggering response. And in addition, because of this immune response effect, we tend to use seaweed across, we tend to use seastem kind of across the board in the programs that we put together. We use it very consistently in foliar applications, we use it in irrigation systems. But there are two places where it is very important to use seaweeds and seastem from a physiological plant response and an economics response perspective. One of them is during the blossoming and pollination period. So during blossom and pollination, seaweeds can support the hormonal shift and the hormonal cycle that is happening in plants and allow them to successfully pollinate and go through the cell division and cell expansion switch without switching from proteolysis to protein synthesis mode. So we can actually have plants that remain very healthy and very disease and insect resistant during all these stress periods when we have these major hor shifts that are happening. So from a disease and insect resistance perspective, applying seaweeds just before the pollination period and during the pollination period can.

Be very valuable and very effective.

The second spot, where seaweed applications are very economical and produce very strong crop responses are when they are applied just before the reproductive bud initiation period. So at the period when plants are determining the number of reproductive buds that they have. So for soybeans, for example, when we're determining the number of pods.

For blueberries.

When we're determining the number of buds that will switch from vegetative to reproductive buds for the following spring at that window or just before that window, applying sea stem just before that window will cause plants to have an abundance of reproductive buds. It's not uncommon. On soybeans, for example, we've seen increased bud counts of anywhere from 20 to 30% and upwards, and similarly on blueberries and other crops. So, of course, that doesn't mean that you will necessarily successfully pollinate and fill all those buds, but at least now you have the framework from which to begin to establish much higher yields. So those are the two locations where I think it is imperative to include seaweeds and particularly seastem in any program to get the highest results and the greatest success possible. So those are the kind of the.

Primary overview of the main points and the thoughts that I wanted to share tonight.

And I'm going to switch over to Q and A. If any of you have any questions or would like to understand better where and how we use C stem. You can speak to our consulting team and who they've all been trained in how SEESTIM has been developed and where to use it. They're very familiar with how we've been using it in our systems. It's a very powerful, very strong standalone.

Seaweed material can be put into any program and is going to show strong results, but it will also work very well. Of course, was designed to work with our program that has all the supporting biology and everything else that it is designed to work with. We have a couple different questions coming through.

First question, in regards to frost protection.

When does it have to be applied before every frost? How long does the protection last? I work with apples from Kenneth Peters. Hi, Kenneth, Glad to see you here tonight.

So the frost protection benefit there.

The frost protection benefit on spring, in the spring on buds, happens from applications that can be applied in two different time windows. We've actually seen fall applications where seaweed was applied in the fall in the last four weeks before dormancy. And there was a carryover effect where there was still the frost resistance effect the following spring. And frost resistance is kind of a topic in and of its own because in addition to seaweed, there's three or four other strategies that can be used to lower the frost, the freezing point even further. You can increase the potassium content of the buds, you can increase the sugar content of the buds, you can increase the urea content of the buds. And any one of those three strategies will reduce the freezing temperature further. And when combined they can. We've. We've seen increased frost resistance up to about 6 degrees Fahrenheit. In a few exceptional cases it's been greater than that, but not consistently. And we don't have enough experience and we haven't seen it consistently enough that we're able to see that that can happen repeatedly. So it is possible for an application in the fall to follow to carry over and still have that effect in the spring. When we put on a spring applic, this is an area where a lot more homework needs to be done and we need to do more research to better understand this. But just from an infield experience perspective, I would say that we typically see applications continue to increase or to maintain freeze resistance for about 14 to 21 days after an application. So after, after a single foliar, we continue to see that effect for an extended period of time. It's a very good question, Kenneth. Next question also from Kenneth. Can seaweed help against fire blight? I believe that it can, but we actually have had very good Successes with a sister product of seaweed, sea stem. So sea stem, not, not here. I'm not speaking about seaweeds in general, but speaking specifically about sea stem in particular. We formulated Seastem with sources of seaweeds that would have very high concentrations of iodine and selenium, because I believe that those two minerals, particularly iodine, has a connection to a number of different diseases and disease expression. So we've often applied those two materials together and have gotten some very nice crop responses. Question from Jerry Snyder. Experts say excessive hormone applications can cause the opposite hormonal effect the grower is looking for. Can excess of seaweed applications cause this opposite hormonal effect? If so, what application rate of kelp would you consider excessive? Jerry, this is a good question, and the short and simple answer is seaweeds are extremely improbable to ever cause the opposite hormonal effect that you would desire. For the very simple reason that the hormones that are coming from seaweeds are an already plant derived and you can even say plant synthesized form. Whereas the synthesized, the synthetic hormones that are often applied cause plants to respond differently, and they're usually present in much higher concentrations. And most importantly of all, they're also present without the bioactive. No compound works by itself all alone. There's always this surrounding group of compounds that support it and counterbalance it and prevent it from becoming too excessive and from becoming too extreme. And when you apply seaweeds, you get this entire suite of compounds that works together, not just a single compound, all by itself. So for that reason, you'll also have this balancing effect where seaweed will tend to bring plants into a much stronger hormonal balance. They'll tend to be more reproductive dominant and produce a much stronger fruit set. But with seaweed, you're unlikely to produce such an extreme effect that a plant will go entirely cytokine and dominant or entirely auxin dominant. For example, John Duke asked the question, would you use it in an active compost pile? John I think that I would generally, while you certainly can use seaweeds in a compost pile, and people who are living close to the coast sometimes collect seaweed and incorporate it into a compost pile for the beach, well, that can certainly be valuable. I don't see a lot of value in adding a liquid seaweed to a compost pile because the purpose and the intent is to use to get the cytokines and all the compounds that are present in the seaweed actually applied directly onto the plant. And when we apply it in a compost pile, then many of the compounds are degraded. I shouldn't say degraded, that's not the right word. But they're digested and broken down by the biology of the compost pile. And the compounds that are originally present may no longer be present to produce the plant effect, a plant response that we're looking for. So you may still get some effect and some response. I know, I do know some growers that do incorporate seaweed into compost piles. But the greatest economic response is actually from applying it directly to the plant itself. It's a very good question. Darren Greenfield asked the question, hi Darren, what frequency of foliar application is recommended? Darren, we've done quite a range depending on crop type and severity of challenge, etc. There's obviously all types of variables that can go into managing a crop.

We've done.

As tight applications as once every five to seven days and as long applications on tree fruit from a logistics perspective. And a grower wasn't able to treat an orchard continuously, we've done orchard applications on trees as much as 1421 days. Excuse me. So typically if I had my preferences, the greatest crop response is going to occur in about a 7 to 10 day window. So repeat applications about every 7 to 10 days. Darren Petzer asked the question, do you account for the minerals found in seaweed when constructing a feeding schedule when using seastim? The answer is no, because the actual quantities of nutrients such as calcium and potassium, etc. That are found are present in such small concentrations that they don't contribute appreciably to a plant's nutritional profile directly. At least they do contribute indirectly. But that's another conversation. However, when you are using an alkali extracted seaweed, since they are extracted with potassium hydroxide, they will often have a fairly high potassium level, anywhere from 2 to 5% potassium as well. So in those cases they will contribute some potassium to overall plant nutrition. Now, interestingly, we find that when we do apply seaweeds, since we're monitoring with many of the growers, the crops that we work with are conducting SAP analysis every two weeks. We're paying attention to the nutrients of the plant is absorbing. We find that when we put on a SAP, when we put on seastem, we often get a mineral response where we get, let's say for the sake of discussion, an increased absorption of calcium, even though there are minimal to almost non existent levels of calcium present in the product itself. So it tends to produce this very strong physiological response where one of the key benefits that was noted is that it can increase the nutrient absorption from the soil profile and make nutrients in.

The soil more bioavailable, so it can't have that effect.

It's a very good question. Nels Fimbo asked the question when applying kelp to the root zone, is there any difference between a liquid cold pressed product and a traditional kelp meal? Is one better than the other? Nels, I wouldn't say that one. If you're just referring to a ground kelp meal that has not been extracted with alkali, I wouldn't say that one is necessarily better than the other. They're just, they're simply different and it's going to depend on the type of application that you want to do. So for example, if you want to use seaweed as a transplant solution for vegetable transplant seedlings, then obviously a liquid material cold pressed as a part of that transplant solution is going to be much more effective, much produce a much better plant response than a dry material. So I wouldn't say that one is better than the other, just that they have different uses and are better used in different places. It's a good question. Anthony asked the question, what dilution is good for soil applications and is too much salinity ever a problem with some crops? For soil applications, we are typically applying seedstem in fertigation and irrigation systems at a rate of one to two quarts per acre per week. So the concentrations are quite small. In transplant solutions, again, we're looking at two quarts to perhaps four quarts per acre in anywhere from 100 to 500 gallons of water. So we're actually applying quite small amounts that are diluted out very substantially. A couple of questions. Assuming that we have healthy soil and plants that are resistant to disease in insects, would these extracts still help? Would you expect the benefits of these products to decrease over time? Assuming we're building soil health? This is such a fascinating question. One of the topics that I'll be speaking about in seminars this winter and also on an upcoming podcast episode will be on the inverse bell curve of biostimulant and foliar nutrient product applications. So this is an entire topic that I think is very important and isn't well understood. I'll just describe it very briefly. What I can say is when plants.

Are extremely unhealthy, a foliar application or an application of seaweed or sea stem is going to produce a tremendous crop response. If you measure the crop response very closely by measuring brix readings, for example, you'll see that there's a tremendous response and a strong Plant growth response that will last for about anywhere from three to seven days. And then as plants become healthier and.

They become more resistant to disease in.

Insects, the response is not quite as pronounced. You'll get a much smaller peak, but the peak will last longer. It might last for 10 days to two weeks or perhaps even longer if the soil is really healthy. And then as crops become really healthy, you again get this tremendous response. You get this tremendous spike where you get greatly increased brix, greatly increased plant response. However, the response lasts much longer. So at the beginning, where the response might have lasted for only five to seven days, when plants are really healthy, you'll get this peak and this spike that will last for 21 to 30 days. So you get a much longer response window and a much greater overall plant response from an application later, when plants become healthy than you do when the plants are not as healthy. That's a very good question. Another question is when foliar spraying, what is the most beneficial time of the day to spray? Night or day? Peak nutrient absorption is considered to be from 3am in the morning until 8am Greatest crop response to applied foliar applications. Thus often happens to for foliars that are applied in the evening. So foliars that are applied in the evening, when temperatures cool down below 86 degrees Fahrenheit and once photosynthesis slows down, there's less sunlight, is when we will get the greatest plant responses because the foliars that are applied in the evening are then actually absorbed at night. I apologize for my voice does not want to cooperate. So I'm going to take one more question here. And then for anyone whose question hasn't been answered, I'll follow up and respond to those by email. There's one more here in the chat, which is you mentioned that CSIM can assist with whitefly infestation. I had this problem with Roger's red grapevine. Should the foliar application concentration be the same as for other applications? So for foliar applications, we're typically applying seastem at a rate of about.

One.

To two quarts per acre. We've learned of some nutrient formulations that can help with whiteflies, so we would often add magnesium, sulfur, molybdenum and boron in addition to the sea stem. If you have additional questions about that, you can connect to one of the team members on the AEA team and we'll be able to put those together for you. So I apologize that my voice is not working better, but I want to thank all of you for participating tonight and for sharing your questions. And if you have any follow up questions that you haven't even had a chance to get asked yet, then send those to us by email and I will respond to you directly on that. So thank you for participating. Thanks for being here. I hope you have a wonderful evening.