Make your own seaweed fertilizer

I've got access to infinite amounts of fresh Padina seaweed. It grows world wide if you know how to find it. The composition of Padina is as follows : Protein 8.3%, Carbs 42%, Fats 0.5%, Fiber 2.5%, moisture 11%, Ash 36%. Ca 48 mg/g, Mg 44 mg/g, K 30 mg/g, Fe 7 mg/g (mg/g is parts per thousand). Padina is one of two brown algae who secrete calcium carbonate, which is also good for soil pH balance.

When compared to other algae Padina has relatively high marijuana friendly nutrients. I'm especially happy about the high K, and the CaMg looks really good too. I'm going to make some fertilizer from a bucket of Padina. I'm thinking I'll blend it to a pulp and then dry it in the sun on cookie sheets. Then powder it in a ziplock bag. Then I can mix it in with my soil or make a tea out of it. I can calculate the soil amendment dosage based on the mg/g concentrations of the above nutrients. As it is Ca-Mg-K goes 4.8-4.4-3.0.

If anyone has processed whole live algae before and can share some experience I'd appreciate it.

Peace

I really like using free stuff for amendments. If you do this please post the process it sounds interesting. A few things things I would consider. Rinsing the salt water off well would be very important. Slower drying does less damage. Like drying your smoke or any herb its not just about flavor but product integrity. I believe it would be easier to dry the seaweed and then break it up than to try to spread some wet paste to dry.

Good luck

So i collected about 10lbs each (dry weight to wet weight is about 1/12) of sargassum and padina wet. I quick dunked the algae into a bucket of fresh water to remove the ocean salts. (this is recommended for fertilizing plants not living by the seaside).

I baked half of the stuff and once dry I loaded it into a ziplock and flaked it into a meal. A research article said it was best to freeze dry the algae to keep all the nutrients, sun drying actually lowered the P and K. Oven baking didn't have an effect on P and K.

The other half of the stuff (raw and still wet from the picking) I blended in a blender and mixed into my soil mixes. About six cups of algae shake. I mixed the shake with aobut 3 cups of vermiculite before I dumped it into my soil to ensure proper spreading and mixing. I noticed it tends to glob up and not mix well.

The flakes I'll save for top dressing and making tea. The wet stuff became the soil amendment.

Sargassum has 8,300 mg/100g potassium in it. Thats 8.3 percent. The total cation concentration of sargassum is 14 percent.

It's pretty easy to get nutrient analysis papers online for various kinds of algae. Some algae are much better than others. Brown's tend to be much better than greens and reds.

I'm still open to anyone who's been making their own algae fertilizer. It turns out the stuff that comes in the bottle is not necessarily as good as home made.