*intentional* duckweed or azolla growing

[big_daddy_rooster_420]

I'm interested in any kind of home food production I can set up for my birds, and so of course have read about aquatic plants like duckweed and azolla.

I've been trying to get some going at home with no luck. I ordered from 4 different sellers on ebay, and i'm trying to grow in containers (1 kiddy pool and a handful of 5 gal buckets) with 4-6" of water, mostly shadey location, using a little bit of worm castings in the water for nutrients.
About halfway through I added aquarium airstone and airpump to 1/2 of the containers in case oxygen was the problem. Doesn't seem to have helped.

I see tons online about people who don't want duckweed struggling to get rid of it, and I've heard of people using it for feed when they have it naturally growing out of control.

I'm curious if anyone has experience getting it going on a homestead scale in an area where it *doesn't* seem to be growing out of control already?

 

[Blue Tiger]

I am growing a species of duckweed in three stock tanks. It thrives in only two. Keep filamentous algae from becoming abundant. I fertilize when washing feeders and waterers in same stock tanks. I have about 30 square feet tied up for the production side. Currently I feed it only to three individually caged roosters by putting it into their water bowls. Consumption rate is very high but actual dry matter content is very low. I could likely support a couple additional birds but the stuff is really only a supplement.

 

[big_daddy_rooster_420]

great to know, thanks! that sort of changes my thoughts on the stuff a little bit...

My birds have tons of space to free range and access to plants/bugs/weeds all day, so I think they're probably finding plenty of the trace vitamins and minerals in the wild stuff.

I'm really looking to reduce the amount I'm buying from the store. The aquatic plants sounded tempting with claims of "double biomass every 1-2 days". Sounds like I might be better off focusing my efforts on soil grown crops that'd produce grains and seeds.

I've already got BSFL going that I'm trying to expand, and just learned about mealworms on this site too!

 

[Blue Tiger]

My guess is the duckweed biomass you can raise does compare favorably with biomass of any terrestrial plant species. Effort is likely to be less as well once culture tank is in place.

 

[big_daddy_rooster_420]

Interesting. Do you add any nutrients besides washing the feeders? Do you do any filtering, cycling, or aeration in your tanks besides what occurs when you wash out equipment?
Indoors or outdoors, and do you supplement heat or light?

Do you have any recommendations about finding a good strain that thrives in local environmental conditions + container cultivation? I haven't noticed any going wild, but I haven't really been intentionally going to survey every body of water either. But I wonder if natural variety would thrive in a tank, vs something that's been selected for growth in a tank. Ebay has been more misses than hits (unless something about my setup is bad), but there's plenty more sellers to roll the dice on.

 

[Blue Tiger]

Usually, mine grows volunteer. This season I started with two types, one really small almost like water meal and a larger that was acquired from a native plants breeder attached to an aquatic plant. Latter crowded the former out. No additional nutrients add nor water movement. They would likely be important. It is not the same every year although most years the species that develops is not the same as either I had this year. My pond has that species now.

 

[Blue Tiger]

I am in Missouri yet apparently Greater Duckweed occurs here and currently dominates my tanks.

https://www.opalexplorenature.org/sites/default/files/7/file/water-survey-duckweed-guide-A5-2014.pdf

http://www.fastonline.org/images/ma...ED_RESOURCE_FOR_DOMESTIC_ANIMALS_AND_FISH.pdf

 

[Blue Tiger]

I am searching for my own interest as well.

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/lemna_minor.shtml

https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/1wayindx.htm


https://www.coebbe.nl/sites/default/files/documenten/Duckweed-aquaculture.pdf

 

[big_daddy_rooster_420]

Usually, mine grows volunteer. This season I started with two types, one really small almost like water meal and a larger that was acquired from a native plants breeder attached to an aquatic plant. Latter crowded the former out. No additional nutrients add nor water movement. They would likely be important. It is not the same every year although most years the species that develops is not the same as either I had this year. My pond has that species now.

Thanks for all the links. I'm not enough of a botanist to be able to identify what I have, to me "Least Duckweed" and "Common Duckweed" look identical, although the ads I bought from claimed Lemna Minor.

Since my goal is to get chicken food, I'm not concerned about raising a specific strain so I like your technique of putting everything together and letting the most vigorous crowd out the rest.

I guess I'll keep tweaking the variables until I get some combination of conditions and species that grows quickly. I'm going to try moving a small amount in doors in a jar and see if the warmer temperature causes it to start multiplying.

 

[Blue Tiger]

It takes a week or two after moving to a new location before you see rapid growth. A problem I see is growth is good for only about 4 months of the year and warmer is better.