Researchers who work in wetlands in Michigan are taking a new approach to invasive plants. They’re harvesting them for fertilizer and fuel. When you’re in the middle of the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, you don’t realize how massive it is. It’s 10,000 acres of marshes and bogs, forest and farmland. To put the size in
Commercial fishermen and fish fertilizer suppliers are struggling to keep up with a demand for carp as people spend more time gardening and growing their own food during the pandemic. The impacts of carp include a reduction in water quality, riverbank damage, and potential contribution to algae blooms which comes at the expense of native
In its second year of operation at Black Hawk Lake in Iowa, the Aquatic Vegetation Harvester cut through some very dense underwater foliage this summer and removed an estimated 265 dump truck loads from the lake. The Aquatic Vegetation Harvester is part of the community’s lake project which is striving to increase Black Hawk Lake’s
In the last few decades, the lake’s weedy, northern-most portion has clogged hulls and deterred boaters from entering the lake from the Oswegatchie River. Patches of weeds greet the water’s surface near every dock, and nearly invisible from a distance on a windy day, matted greenery creates a basin of weeds seven-feet-deep in some spots.
The Azolla filiculoides fern— with leaves the size of gnats, is considered a wonder-plant that played a pivotal role in cooling our planet 50 million years ago. Among its many properties, the Azolla can capture CO2 and nitrogen from the air and has genes that provide insect resistance. Some 50 million years ago, however, the