Ascophyllum nodosum [is] also known as rockweed in many areas of the world. It’s been used for centuries by local people as a way to enrich the soil and support their crops.
Now, that knowledge has evolved into a more sustainable harvesting operation, extracting the biologically active compounds of this seaweed and turning it into an agricultural biotechnology with three major benefits: supporting crop growth in difficult conditions, restoring soil health, and removing carbon from the atmosphere, a key action for tackling climate change.
Seaweeds are more effective at capturing carbon than plants, partly due to their high photosynthesis rates. As a result, seaweed has been identified as a potential carbon sink that could help mitigate climate change and its potential has drawn attention from researchers keen to explore how this could be used in a multitude of industries, from agriculture to feed and food supplements.
Unlike kelp, which grows in deeper water and remains fully submerged, Asco grows in the tidal zone, spending half the day in freezing cold water and the other half drying out on rocks.
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It has adapted to tolerate harsh conditions of freeze and thaw, dehydrating and rehydrating with the tides. By extracting the seaweed’s bioactive compounds in their processing facility and turning them into agricultural solutions, Acadian Plant Health says it is able to transfer Asco’s resilience to crops, when the biostimulants are applied directly to them.
