NSW Bananas

Hi everyone I would like to know how other banana growers have found using seaweed as compost for their banana plants.
And those that do use it just collect it and put around plants without touching posetum? or wash it ? or let it dry out before use or dont bother?

Gabe15

I have lightly rinsed it and just put it around the mat, lightly working it into the top few inches of soil, and covering with leaves and compost. It is also fine to mix in the planting hole if you are planting new plants. I have talked with some other people about using it for crops (also good to use for sweetpotato, at the least invasive species we have here, Gracilaria salicornia, has very high potassium content), there is some debate whether washing is necessary, and also whether or not it may be washing away much of the nutrients inadvertently, but I don't know.

It is best to harvest it fresh and use it right away, but if you would like to dry it down for use later, try to keep it out of the sun.

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NSW Bananas

Thanks Gabe

So it may be sfe to trial using it straight off the beach ?
and posibly just pile it on on top of the soil.

Richard

In most locations, you need to rinse it off to remove the ocean salt content.

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nannerfunboi

no ocean here..sigh but one yr
the river was super low..i called fish&game if i could
gather algae from lower river..
so i took a rake and pulled a truck load to shore..
let it dry..and picked up next day..whew.. the smell LOL
i added it to my compost.. leaches and all.. was a good
compost that yr..
anyone else tried freshwater algae???

DoctorSteve

I have not used it fresh yet but would like to. I use dried and liquid kelp. My bananas seem to like it and have thicker leaves than last year. I don't know if it is the kelp or not though.

Richard

Liquid and dried kelp products are usually extracted from Norwegian Kelp (Ascophyllum nodosum) because it has the highest concentration of gibberellic acid. This plant hormone is the primary active ingredient in kelp products; i.e., it is not the micronutrients etc. that are causing the improved vigor in the plant.

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DoctorSteve

Well they seem to like it anyway. I don't know what is making the leaves thicker but I am going to keep doing what I am.

Also I corrected the grammar in my first post.

Richard

Well definitely! My post was not intended to be negative but instead provide some insight as to what is occurring. Gibberellic acid is a general signal to most plants to do more of what they are currently doing. It is widely used in agriculture at various stages of growth depending upon the crop. For example it is sprayed by helicopter on avocado groves just prior to the budding phase in the spring, which usually causes them to produce 3 times the volume of flower buds as compared to the untreated plants. Of course, for them to actually carry this fruit to maturity they need to receive enough nutrients to service the developing fruit. Presently they are feeding the groves by the truckload!

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GreenFin

I was wholly unaware of that. I love it when I learn something that I didn't even know I didn't know.

Thanks!

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DoctorSteve

Yeah that is cool. Oh and don't worry Richard I didn't take it negative. It is hard to put things in writing sometimes as we cannot hear or see the person we are communicating with. All is good.

Iunepeace

From what I've read seaweed is excellent to add to the compost pile. It has all those micronutrients and growth hormones and acts like a green. You can also mix it in with your soil like Gabe said or mulch with it. I know a Canadian gardener who grew some great potatoes in pure seaweed so it has multiple uses lol; he also puts tons of it on yard plots he intends to turn into gardenable soil, and it makes the soil nice and soft and supple. It also gave my tamarind tree a large boost when I mulched heavily with it for a few months.

Some people wash it before using, some let it dry, some don't. I think the salt content depends on the location it's being picked up from. By that I mean, my Canadian friend doesn't need to wash his off as it's not salty anyway, but some others feel more comfortable washing it off, so I guess it's up to you. If your soil is already high in metals and salts then it certainly can't hurt, but for me personally it's too bothersome to rinse off the volume of seaweed that I get from the beach. Some say that the seaweed more recently washed up (closer to the tide) is less salty than that which has been laying in the salty sea spray air for a while, so you can keep that in mind when harvesting if you want.

I just throw down around my bananas sopping wet and they do great. It's one of the best mulches I know, and those growth hormones really work wonders (one of my bananas is already putting out a new pup lol). And as it breaks down (relatively quickly) it enriches the soil and adds nice organic matter to it so that's a plus. I just buried some veggie scraps in the soil around one of them yesterday and the soil under the seaweed had already begun to turn much darker and healthy looking

Speaking of which, a lady in my church uses tons of seaweed (and sand) in her banana clump (it's a collection of mats so I say clump) and they grow like mad. The photo below only shows about a third to a quarter of it, and some of the plants are taller now (and flowering ).



Hope that helps!

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NSW Bananas

Pic Of seaweed untreated trial on Banana plant bottom left corner

sunfish

Iunepeace

Looking good, and yea I know that much of the farming land in that area is basically broken down seaweed, so it speaks for itself

How long have you had the seaweed on the trial banana, and have you noticed any differences?

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