seaweed - anything i can do with it?

[spark_28]

live on an island so have plenty of it.

a guy down the road for me has his sheep on machair that is bare. its over grazed and goes brown. yet his sheep are in great nick, they are fed concentrates but nothing else. his sheep eat seaweed though, which is what must be keeping them going. North Ronaldsay sheep pretty much live off it.

any ideas what i can do with it?

 

[Dry Rot]

It has always been used as fertiliser. Ask about lazy beds. I take it you are an incomer or you'd surely know?

 

[Chasingmytail]

great for growing veg, make some good compost too

 

[A1an]

Sheep off the shore always seem to do better than the ones in hill parks. Body weight, lambing and feet are all better.

I have raised beds in my garden, at the end of the growing season I put a layer of seaweed on them then cover in black polythene and let it cook/rot down over the winter.

There is a company in Uist that cut and dry seaweed for various uses.

 

[spark_28]

i know its good for veg, i mean more is there anything i could do to turn it into something edible for the sheep

 

[sherg]

Was it @Kiwi Pete that used it for either cattle or sheep? I seem to remember someone from nz doing something with it

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I play around with it, just the odd trailerload from the beach after a good storm.
Great mineral content, especially seaweed from colder oceans

I have brewed it up as a drench for pasture and stock, was great but pretty smelly, now I just dry it over the fences until brittle and throw it out for the sheeps. And the cattle help themselves to it

 

[delilah]

https://www.facebook.com/KentSeaweedCo/

 

[JohnGalway]

I have heard tell of seaweed being turned into biochar, and being like a one time lime application. But I've not managed to dig up much information on that.

My own flock have access to the shore. I notice more of the cheviot cross ewes go down eating weed rather than the blackies.

I have spread a little on the land but that's time and labour intensive for me here.

Other than that I use it on spuds/veg etc.

I've got a mad notion to make either a cargo cable car or light railway using a petrol capstan winch to move it, as the shore is well downhill here and using a quad would tear up the land. The weed only washes up in specific spots.

 

[Dry Rot]

It used to be harvested on the Uists. I think bladdder wrack was first twisted onto a rope to make it float, dragged out to form a large loop, as a salmon net, then the sea weed was cut with a reaping hook. When a decent amount was collected, the rope would be hauled in and the sea weed would be loaded on to a trailer and taken to the alginate factory and from there to the mainland. I have an idea it was dried and then burnt first. It was used in things like lipstick, cosmetics, etc. I am sure wikipedia would have something on it. The factory went bust years ago.

 

[Al R]

Great for fertility.
Years ago here, same farm but different family who has cows, their fertility was dropping and they struggled to get cows in calf. Someone said put seaweed on a field. There’s a beach on the farm here, they went and plastered a 1acre field in seaweed and then every day after the cows came out of the parkour they went in there for half an hour before heading to other fields - apparently the worker who came to work for us after said it worked instantly - talking about 1970’s mind.
by far the growthiest field I’ve got BUT it is under 1 acre so tends to get mob grazed by 150 ewes every so often. Currently holding 18 ewe lamb singles with their lambs, 14 days and they’ve hardly touched it.

 

[A1an]

It used to be harvested on the Uists. I think bladdder wrack was first twisted onto a rope to make it float, dragged out to form a large loop, as a salmon net, then the sea weed was cut with a reaping hook. When a decent amount was collected, the rope would be hauled in and the sea weed would be loaded on to a trailer and taken to the alginate factory and from there to the mainland. I have an idea it was dried and then burnt first. It was used in things like lipstick, cosmetics, etc. I am sure wikipedia would have something on it. The factory went bust years ago.

It's back up and running. Uist Asco it's called.

 

[neilo]

Great for fertility.
Years ago here, same farm but different family who has cows, their fertility was dropping and they struggled to get cows in calf. Someone said put seaweed on a field. There’s a beach on the farm here, they went and plastered a 1acre field in seaweed and then every day after the cows came out of the parkour they went in there for half an hour before heading to other fields - apparently the worker who came to work for us after said it worked instantly - talking about 1970’s mind.
by far the growthiest field I’ve got BUT it is under 1 acre so tends to get mob grazed by 150 ewes every so often. Currently holding 18 ewe lamb singles with their lambs, 14 days and they’ve hardly touched it.

So a probable iodine deficiency then?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I have heard tell of seaweed being turned into biochar, and being like a one time lime application. But I've not managed to dig up much information on that.

My own flock have access to the shore. I notice more of the cheviot cross ewes go down eating weed rather than the blackies.

I have spread a little on the land but that's time and labour intensive for me here.

Other than that I use it on spuds/veg etc.

I've got a mad notion to make either a cargo cable car or light railway using a petrol capstan winch to move it, as the shore is well downhill here and using a quad would tear up the land. The weed only washes up in specific spots.

I've seen evidence of GPS collared red deer travelling over 70 miles through Fiordland (quite a task!) simply to graze seaweed off the beaches.

Flying over in an aircraft, the whole beach is full of pig and deer spoor and animals happily grazing the stuff, usually autumn and springtime when the faster-growing plants will have lower mineral content.
That's really quite "a thing" when you take into account how many tonnes/hectare of edible forage there is in Fiordland National park.

 

[neilo]

I've seen evidence of GPS collared red deer travelling over 70 miles through Fiordland (quite a task!) simply to graze seaweed off the beaches.

Flying over in an aircraft, the whole beach is full of pig and deer spoor and animals happily grazing the stuff, usually autumn and springtime when the faster-growing plants will have lower mineral content.
That's really quite "a thing" when you take into account how many tonnes/hectare of edible forage there is in Fiordland National park.

So it tastes nice?

 

[Cvx1170]

I remember a new product came out one spring, about 15 years ago, looked liked dried grass clippings in a bag, it was shredded seaweed afaik, you applied it with a fert spinner. I haven't seen it since?

 

[Dry Rot]

So it tastes nice?

I had a party of Japanese tourists over one year. They had a variety of sea weed 'snacks' and medicines with them. Quite tasty! We don't exploit the 'fruits of the sea' nearly enough in this country.

 

[clod hopper]

So a probable iodine deficiency then?

That's what I was thinking too ?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So it tastes nice?

Certainly does, well some of it does. I haven't tried munching bull kelp but some of the lettuce-like stuff is really tasty

 

[clod hopper]

live on an island so have plenty of it.

a guy down the road for me has his sheep on machair that is bare. its over grazed and goes brown. yet his sheep are in great nick, they are fed concentrates but nothing else. his sheep eat seaweed though, which is what must be keeping them going. North Ronaldsay sheep pretty much live off it.

any ideas what i can do with it?

If I was living near the cost and had access to seaweed I'd certainly be feeding it one way or another above or below ground level, ?