There are so many amazing benefits of Azolla for food, fibre, fuel, fodder, mulch, fertiliser, carbon drawdown and more. I just can't get over how incredible it is at rapidly making the most superb compost! Scoop it out of the water, pile it up and wait a week - that's it. It makes the soil dark and rich and plants are thriving with it.
Azolla has been around since the time of the dinosaurs and is able to fix nitrogen through a symbiotic relationship with a 2 billion year old bacteria, Anabaena. It's a bit like the legume-rhizobium relationship in the soil.
Azolla is one of the fastest growing plants in the world that cleans the water as it grows. Never-the-less, we're conscious of not taking too much, so it continues to double each few days so we, and others, can harvest more.
Some say it will be critical for the future of food production when fossil fuels are less accessible to make fertilisers - it's a solar-powered fertiliser.
In this 5 minute film see how our family simply hand-harvests Azolla. Learn about the many amazing benefits it has - from pre-industrial agriculture to space agriculture.
As mentioned in the film, Azolla is a native here and there are many native varieties naturalised around the world. It prefers still and slow moving water. In some places certain varieties are considered a weed because of its abundant growth. You can look up the potential aquatic weeds in your area to see if it's suitable to add into your system.
