Using carbon rich kelp to fertilize the farm | Farm Dreams

And this, uh, is the kill. Wow, I brought the kelp here about a week and a half ago. Okay, um, and it's been setting here to dry, but you can smell it. It smells a little bit like the ocean. It does. It does. Oh, this is awesome. I just love it! They're so cool, just like open the middle of a farm, right?

Yeah, what we see is that when we put the kelp down, the grass just starts to grow so much better. It's kind of phenomenal! Wow, this was 2100 pounds, so that's about a ton. This is what a ton of kelp looks like. How much area are you applying the kelp to? Maybe half an acre, more or less.

So a ton per half acre? You really couldn't get enough kelp. You couldn't get enough kelp, and one of the big questions is like: how can we extend the benefit of kelp? Is there some way to like super dry it and make something like a kelp pellet, right?

Hey, you could just spread across your fields almost like even mulch with it. Absolutely! And so these are the questions that we're currently exploring on this farm so that we can pull nutrients out of the near shore system where it's causing a lot of pollution, exactly, and bring those nutrients and this carbon up here into the grasslands where it's going to simulate production.

The idea is that this kelp is drawing carbon out of the ocean. It's the craziest thing! Yeah, yeah, I just love it! Some carbon dioxide that ends up in the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, and as Dr. Joth Davis mentioned, excess carbon causes the sea water to have increased acidity.

Kelp in the ocean, much like plants on land, draw carbon dioxide in and take it out of their surroundings. But as Eli points out, when that kelp is transferred to land, the soil stores the carbon and can benefit from the seaweed's nutrients. In the ocean, nitrogen and carbon are an issue, and so then the kelp takes it up like a little vehicle, and then you just take it here and put it in the soil.

We're benefiting the Marine system, and then we can start to benefit the terrestrial system. That's honestly so freaking cool! I think it's super exciting to think about how this could be a piece of what we do to address some of the big challenges with climate change.

Eli is one of those people with contagious enthusiasm, really passionate about the work, but also cares about the environment. But what I also love about this is like it didn't come in any kind of packaging, and you sourced it locally. So this is stored carbon, and we can take this stored carbon, put it out on grassland or pastures, and those grasslands can sequester more carbon, right?

Putting it down in the soil and storing it. You know, I grew up around a lot of traditional agricultural farms, and so bringing something like this—something that's exciting into the market, something that's new as a farmer—it's like we're spending money to get carbon-rich materials, and here it is just hanging out in the ocean, and you're putting it into your soil and then you're growing some really nice grass.

But then what are you doing with that grass? It does require some grazers, so we should go look at some of the pastures. Oh, oh yeah! Should we go check them out? [Music] Thank you.