Permacul AZOLLA – A Little Ferm with Massive Green Potential

[China Connection]

Um, a way to produce a protein crop.



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AZOLLA – A Little Ferm with Massive Green Potential

Azolla is a unique freshwater fern that is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet which grows free floating on fresh water with numerous small closely overlapping scale like water repellent leaves with their roots hanging in the water.

Introduction:

The importance of Azolla was first discovered in China due to its nitrogen fixing capability. There have been records of Azolla being widely used as a bio-fertilizer in various local reports in China and Vietnam in 17th century. It is popular and cultivated widely in countries like India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines although India is yet to realise the potential of Azolla and take up the use of this super plant in a big way.

Azolla is an extraordinary aquatic weed rich in proteins, essential amino acids, vitamins (vitamin A, vitamin B12 and Beta- Carotene), growth promoter intermediaries and minerals like calcium, phosphorous, potassium, ferrous, copper, magnesium etc. On a dry weight basis, it contains 25 – 35 percent protein, 10 – 15 percent minerals and 7 – 10 percent of amino acids, bio-active substances and bio-polymers.

Azolla is an effective bio-fertilizer for coffee, areca, coconut, pepper, banana and other crops grown in natural tree-shade environment due to its unique nitrogen fixation capability. It can be added directly to plants or can be mixed with organic manure or soil. With the rising prices of chemical fertilizers, Azolla is a wonderful bio-fertilizer which is cost effective and a boon to farmers with its rich nutrient contents.

**Thus AZOLLA is famously known as GREEN NITROGEN FERTILIZER & GREEN GOLDMINE**

Application of Azolla as fresh green manure to COFFEE

Image 2

Growing Azolla:
Azolla can be grown by preparing a water storage medium using Silpauline sheets or any other shallow pit which can store water. All corners of the pit should be at the same level so that a uniform water level can be maintained. Store water up to a height of 0.5 feet. Place a small amount of fresh Azolla inside the water. This will multiply rapidly and cover the entire growing medium in about 10-15 days.

Growing medium prepared using Silpauline sheet

Image 3

Maintenance:

Add any kind of organic matter like cow dung or fertile soil in to the water stored to facilitate rapid multiplication
Maintain shade up to 70% using shade net or any natural shade.
Water level should be maintained during rainy season.
It is advised to change the water and the organic matter once a month.
Addition of cow dung once in 5 days will result in rapid multiplication.

A pit of dimension 15x10x0.5 feet will fetch around 50 kilograms wet weight of Azolla every week.


http://hasiruorganics.com/azolla-little-ferm-massive-green-potential/

 

[China Connection]

Why is Azolla unique?

Azolla is unique because it is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet – yet it does not need any soil to grow.

Unlike almost all other plants, Azolla is able to get its nitrogen fertilizer directly from the atmosphere. That means that it is able to produce biofertilizer, livestock feed, food and biofuel exactly where they are needed and, at the same time, draw down large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, thus helping to reduce the threat of climate change.

How is it able to do this?

Azolla and Anabaena – the Perfect Marriage

Azolla is able to do this because it has a unique mutually beneficial ‘symbiotic relationship‘ with a cyanobacterium (blue-green alga) called Anabaena.

Each partner gives something to the other in this Perfect Marriage.
The Azolla-Anabaena symbiosis

The Azolla-Anabaena symbiosis. Each partner gives something to the other.

Azolla provides an enclosed environment for Anabaena within its leaves. In return, Anabaena sequesters nitrogen directly from the atmosphere which then becomes available for Azolla’s growth, freeing it from the soil that is needed by most other land plants for their nitrogen fertilization.

The oldest Azolla fossils are more than 70 million years old, representing the remains of plants that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs roamed the earth. They occur in sediments that were deposited in quiescent freshwater bodies, such as lakes, ponds and sluggish rivers, identical to those inhabited by modern Azolla.
Fossil Azolla (left) has leaves (circled above in red) and tendrils (circled in blue) that are identical to those of modern Azolla (right). The illustrated fossil is from the Green River Formation of Garfield County, Colorado, dated between 50.5 and 55.5 Ma (million years). The photograph was kindly provided by Dr Ian Miler of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.The illustrated fossil is from the Green River Formation of Garfield County, Colorado, dated between 50.5 and 55.5 Ma (million years). The photograph was kindly provided by Dr Ian Miler of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Fossil Azolla (left) has leaves (circled above in red) and tendrils (circled in blue) that are identical to those of modern Azolla (right). The fossil is from the Green River Formation of Colorado, dated between 50.5 and 55.5 million years. The photograph was kindly provided by Dr Ian Miller of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Several other symbioses are known between plants and cyanobacteria – for example in legumes – but the Azolla-Anabaena relationship is the only known symbiosis in which a cyanobacterium passes directly to subsequent generations via the plant’s reproductive sporangia and spores.

So Azolla and Anabaena have never been apart for 70 million years. During that Immense period of time, the two partners have co-evolved numerous complementary ways that make them increasingly efficient.

That is why Azolla is able to produce large quantities of biofertilizer, food, livestock feed and biofuel without using land needed to grow food and biofuel, or natural ecosystems such as rainforests.

The challenge

The challenge, then, is to work with Azolla and use its remarkable properties to help us weather the Perfect Storm that now threatens us and the other species with whom we share our planet.


http://theazollafoundation.org/azolla/the-azolla-anabaena-symbiosis-2/

 

[China Connection]

Geographic distribution

Azolla occurs naturally in freshwater ditches, ponds, lakes and sluggish rivers of warm-temperate and tropical regions.

Its absence from regions that have prolonged freezing or aridity, both of which are fatal to Azolla, is clearly illustrated by Small & Darbyshire’s (2011) map (below) of its approximate modern distribution.

Please note that the map shows the broad distribution of Azolla and does not indicate its precise occurrences.

Approximate modern distribution of Azolla, from Small & Darbyshire (2011)


Lumpkin & Plucknett (1980) suggested that Azolla’s species had the following occurrences prior to their dispersal by humans:

A. caroliniana: eastern North America, and the Caribbean

A. filiculoides: southern South America through western North America and Alaska

A. microphylla: tropical and subtropical America

A. mexicana: northern South America through western North America

A. nilotica: upper reaches of the Nile to Sudan

A. pinnata: most of Asia and the coast of tropical Africa.

According to S****horpe (1967), A. filiculoides was formerly native to Europe, where it probably died on during the last ice age. It was re-introduced to Europe in the 19th century, along with A. caroliniana and A. pinnata as ornamentals, but they subsequently spread into the wild.

The distribution of other Azolla species was similarly extended and Lumpkin & Plunkett (1980) recorded the following occurrences for the six Azolla species:

AZOLLA CAROLIANA

Asia: Canton, Hong Kong

Europe: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Romania, Spain

Latin America: Antilles, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela

North America: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Caroline, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia

AZOLLA FILICULOIDES

South Africa

Australia and New Zealand

Asia: China, Japan

Europe: Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Ireland, Portugal Romania, Sardinia, Yugoslavia

Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad, Uruguay

North America: Alaska, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington

Central Pacific: Hawaii

AZOLLA MEXICANA

Latin America: Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico

North America: British Columbia, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin

AZOLLA MICROPYLLA

Latin America: Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Galapagos Islands, Guyana, Peru

AZOLLA NILOTICA

Africa: Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia

AZOLLA PINNATA

Africa: Angola, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zaire, Zambia

Australia: Australia, New Zealand

Asia: Bangladesh, Burma, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam

ENDEMIC AND INTRODUCED AZOLLA

The distinction between the endemic (original) and ‘introduced’ distribution of Azolla species has important implications for legislation that restricts the sale and use of Azolla species due to their designation as ‘invasive species‘. Where applied, particularly in Europe, this potentially restricts the use of Azolla to help combat the Perfect Storm: the threats of climate change and shortages of food, land and energy.

In contrast, many other regions, including India and the Far East, have a very different approach to Azolla, using it to produce local biofertilizer and livestock feed. These utilize an integrated ‘green’ biosystem based on natural relationships between species, rather than increasingly expensive feeds and chemical fertilizers that often have to be transported long distances.
Farmer innoculating a rice paddy with Azolla in the village of La Van, Vietnam.


http://theazollafoundation.org/azolla/azollas-geographic-distribution/

 

[China Connection]

All-time Favourite – Azolla

Azolla (Azolla pinnata or Azolla filiculoides) is my all-time favourite. It is a floating perennial waterweed, geographically very widespread, native to Australia and to a number of other countries. The small, fernlike leaves are about as big as a thumbnail and look like snowflakes. It likes still or slow-moving water like dams, weirs or ponds, and can cover them in dense mats. It often proliferates in the runoff from other people’s overuse of bought fertilisers. In spring it is green but as the weather heats up it turns a distinctive deep red colour.

Azolla has two features that make it my pick of the weeds. Firstly, it is symbiotic with a nitrogen-fixing alga called Anabaena. This alga, like the bacteria that cohabit with legumes, is capable of taking gaseous nitrogen out of the air and fixing it in the form of a solid. As azolla decomposes it releases copious amounts of nitrogen into the soil.

The beauty of azolla is that the nitrogen is not in soluble form, as it is in many high nitrogen fertilisers. Nitrogen is one of the major plant nutrients, but soluble nitrogen fertilisers are a bit of a worry. Plants cannot avoid taking in soluble nitrogen if it is dissolved in their drinking water, and they can easily overindulge. They will put on lots of lush new growth, but the new cells are thin-walled and prone to attack by fungal diseases and sap-sucking insects. However, served up as azolla, plenty of this major nutrient is available but is not being force-fed to your plants.

Earthworms and soil organisms, including thermophilic compost bacteria, relish this sort of high nitrogen food, since it is the basis of proteins. Azolla performs stunningly as a compost activator or as food for breeding worms. A couple of buckets full of azolla will replace animal manure in compost. I throw mine to the chooks, one bag of azolla and two bags of grass mulch. They scratch through it thoroughly searching for the little crustaceans trapped on the azolla. At the end of the day I have some very good eggs and a take-away compost pile.

The second feature of azolla is that it is so prolific and easily collected. In a good situation, it will double its leaf mass every week. Out of one small farm dam I have been collecting fifteen bags full, over half a tonne, per week for the last few months, and you can’t see where I’ve been.

I’m a bit of a wimp about cold weather. It takes a very inviting situation to get me in for a swim, but a dam full of azolla is very inviting. With someone on the other end of a six metre length of net, I can collect those fifteen bags in about half an hour. Even if I paid myself wages for collection time, it would be the cheapest fertiliser around. It is like picking up wet $20 notes!


https://permaculturenews.org/2009/04/13/wonder-weeds/

 

[China Connection]

One can see below how much protein a potato has. So mixing some Azollia into some mashed potato will up the protein content a heap.



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How Much Protein in a Large Baking Potato?
Written by M.T. Wroblewski; Updated November 27, 2018
How Much Protein in a Large Baking Potato?


When you think “potatoes,” you might automatically think about carbohydrates. But russet potatoes – also known as baking potatoes – are a fine source of protein that should play a role in a healthy diet. Just as often, potatoes are a source of surprise for people who take the time to review their nutritional content, for potatoes contain more vitamins, nutrients and – yes – protein than expected. It's usually the toppings that lead to the carbs (and fat) you can live without.
Protein by the Numbers

One medium russet potato, or one that weighs 213 grams, contains 4.6 grams of protein – 9 percent of the daily recommended amount for someone following a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet.

You can compute your recommended daily allowance of protein by multiplying your weight, in pounds, by 0.36. But to give you an idea of how much protein you need every day, a 50-year-old woman who is 5-foot-5, weighs 140 pounds and whose activity level can be described as “low-active,” needs 51 grams of protein per day.

Meanwhile, a 50-year-old man who stands 6 feet tall, weighs 190 pounds and whose activity level is also “low-active,” needs 69 grams of protein per day.

In case you're still wondering about those carbs, a medium potato contains 38 grams of carbohydrates – and 168 calories. It also contains 11 grams of sodium but 0 grams of fat. Russet potatoes are good sources of vitamin C, iron and minerals such as potassium, manganese, magnesium, copper and iron.
Protein Packs Power

Whether you get your daily allotment of protein mostly from potatoes or a combination of other sources, your body needs it to function properly. Protein has been described as the “building block” of bones, muscles, blood, cartilage and skin. Your body uses protein to fortify and repair tissues, hair and nails and produce enzymes and hormones.

Unlike carbohydrates, your body does not store protein; it needs a fresh supply every day. This should come as good news if you want to make potatoes a healthy part of your diet.
https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/much-protein-large-baking-potato-8380.html

 

[Faroe]

Thanks, CC.

I love aquatic plants, but am generally horrible at growing them. One year, I was over-run with duck weed, but haven't been able the get it going again since. Sigh. I'll try again this year.

Our NM sun is extremely harsh. The year it grew like crazy, the plants were in translucent white plastic buckets, and didn't get any overhead light. I'll try something like that again. We've got ducks now, so it'll have to be covered anyway. I'm hearing a lot about inc. levels of UV, esp. B and C, due to the GSM. Don't know if hard science backs that up, but sunlight does seem much harsher lately.

 

[China Connection]

The duckweed needs nitrogen and lots of it but the Azolla doesn't. Both are heavy feeders for other minerals but. I use a high-grade Hydropic mix myself. Nitrogen can quickly become a problem if you are keeping fish in the same water.

The Azolla will handly colder conditions than the duckweed. However, it has more of a root system than the duckweed if eating it yourself.

The Azolla will grow better in shaded conditions but will still grow in the sun however it goes a red color in the sun. Many use shade cloth covers over it.

The big advantage of both plants is their high protein contents. You can on feed them to fly maggots also then on feed again to chickens etc.

With what is coming these two plants can keep you alive.

 

[China Connection]

Make compost in a week with Azolla.

Youtube


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30ALLzA3J7A



Morag Gamble : Our Permaculture Life
Published on Jun 29, 2017
Morag Gamble from Our Permaculture Life (www.our-permaculture-life.blogspot.com) explains the amazing benefits of Azolla for food, fibre, fuel, fodder, mulch, fertiliser, carbon drawdown and more.

It is incredible at making the most superb compost in such short time ! Scoop it out of the water, pile it up and wait a week - that's it. It makes the soil dark and rich and plants are thriving with it.

Azolla has been around since the time of the dinosaurs and is able to fix nitrogen and drawdown carbon. It is an abundant water plant that fixes nitrogen in a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria, Anabaena, which has been around for possibly 2 billion years.

Azolla is one of the fastest growing plants in the world that cleans the water as it grows. Some say it will be critical for the future of food production when fossil fuels are less accessible to make fertilisers.

In this film, Morag is out in the pond harvesting Azolla with her family and talks about this amazing plant.

Read more:
http://our-permaculture-life.blogspot...
http://theazollafoundation.org/




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http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...allenge-of-feeding-oneself-from-a-small-space.