The first records of seaweed being processed come from China in 2700 BC and the Chinese and Japanese have been using it for human and animal consumption ever since! It’s recorded that British people had already made fertilizer by seaweed in the 16th century. In Japan, France and Canada ect., people were used to using bulk fresh seaweed as manure. At that time, some place like the South Wales of British island and the Keswics of Germany, people using the rotten seaweed from seacoast for planting crops and vegetables and got the very good effect. In the 17th century, France government strongly recommended people using the seaweeds as soil fertilizer and stipulated the seaweed collecting time, conditions, and sea area. At that time, the seacoast Britany and Normandy places are very famous as “golden coast” for hundreds of miles high quality crops and vegetables. As transport and labor costs rose and chemical fertilizers became more readily available so raw seaweed was replaced by processed seaweed. The application history of seaweed fertilizer fell into three phases: Rotten seaweed period-Seaweed meal period-Seaweed extract liquid period. Seaweed fertilizer is a kind of natural organic fertilizer whose fertility depends on the nutrient elements it contains. The seaweeds used as fertilizer are often those large economic ones such as Macroeystis, Laminaria, Ascophyllum, Sargassum, Nereocystis and Eckionia.
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