Beachcombing for bull kelp

Press, 1 November 1985, Page 23

Beachcombing for bull kelp

Gathering bull kelp Iran the scenic Kaikoura coast is a welcome change from the pressures of city life for a retired Christchurch couple, Bernie and Marianne Browne.

The Brownes were determined to remain active when Bernie retired from his city-based job last yearand have formed a partnership selling seaweed to home gardeners. The seaweed is dried, crushed and bagged and used as a mulch and soil conditioner.

T ast summer the Brownes collected about six tonnes of storm-tossed bull kelp (lyUrvillea Antarctica) from the Kaikoura coast

and have spent the last few months preparing it for sale and arranging markets. Dragging by band tonnes of kelp off the rocky coast is not normally the type of activity recommended for newly retired people, but the Brownes say the exercise keeps them fit Mr Browne was formerly manager of the Christchurch branch of a stock and station company, Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Ltd. Now, while patrolling the rocky foreshore, he is not sorry to be far away from the worries of farmer clients whose financial problems have been aggravated by the economic downturn. Marianne gave up a job looking after elderly folk to

devote time to the seaweed venture and they were joined by Frank and Jo Wilding, of the well-known Te Mania Angus stud, near Parnassus.

The Wildings were looking for other interests in preparation for passing some of their farming activities on to their sons. Mr Wilding has provided some of the machinery for carting and crushing the seaweed and Mrs Wilding is doing trials with horses by using seaweed as a supplement in stock food.

The beachcombing is done mostly by the Brownes who covered about Bkm of coastline last season. The kelp is dragged above the high j ■

water mark and left to dry in the sun, which takes four to five days in good weather..

Some pieces of kelp are almost 10 metres long and have up to 11 leaves. The dried kelp is taken to the Wildings’ farm at Te Mania, passed through a lime crusher, and later bagged in 4.5 kg plastic bags which retail at $7.50.

The kelp has only been on the market since June and is available at 11 garden nurseries in Canterbury, between Ashburton and Rangiora including Christchurch. It has already attracted the interest of an Auckland nurseryman who has arranged for a trial shipment to be sent to Auckland. Mr Browne has toyed with the idea of using the seaweed resource for many years. Although not previously a keen gardener himself," he noticed while living in Kaikoura for 24 years before moving to Christchurch that neighbours who dug seaweed into their soils had excellent gardens. Collecting and handling the kelp and digging it into gardens was tiresome work, but the results appeared to be worth the effort The seaweed had attracted interest from other users as well, including a Japanese chemical company which wanted the seaweed

for producing sodium alganate. The company wanted 10,000 tonnes of seaweed a year and a trial shipment was sent to Japan through Pyne, Gould, Guinness in the early 19705. The shipment was packed in wool bales which creates some freight hassles, but before an alternative method could be used the Government banned any further exports because of pressure from ecologists. The partners have a permit from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to gather up to 100 tonnes of storm-tossed kelp each year from the coast between the Waiau River and Kekerengu. Ohmining permission from the MLA.F. took about seven months and initially Mr Browne was issued with a fishing licence. This was eventually replaced with a special permit to handgather storm-tossed seaweed.

The Brownes recommend Kai Kelp used in conjunction with a balanced farmyard manure or compost to give a complete fertiliser and soil conditioner. They claim it is suitable for a wide variety of root and green crops and forms an excellent mulch to guard plants from extremes of temperature and moisture. It has an added advantage

of being; free of weed seeds and disease spores. Kelp is an excellent activator in compost heaps and should be added as a thin layer between other material

Kelp is rich in organic matter, potassium, sodium, iodine and boron plus other important trace elements, but is low in phosphorus. Because it comprises up to 30 per cent protein, bacterial decomposition places a heavy demand on soil nitrogen so the Brownes recommend phosphorus and nitrogen be added to give optimum growth. For topdressing garden beds, the kelp should be applied in autumn or spring and left a month before young seedlings are planted out. If nitrogen robbery is suspected, dried blood or other products containing nitrogen should be added. A suggested ratio for dried blood is one part to 50 parts of seaweed.

Garden soils with good organic matter content should be topdressed with up to 200 grams per square metre and soils which are predominantly clay or sand should receive up to 400 grams per square metre. For liquid application, 80 grams of kelp should be mixed with 1 litre of water and the liquid diluted at one part to 150 parts of water.