In late fall of 2022, the Town of Huntington embarked on a pilot program to grow sugar kelp. Sugar kelp is a seaweed that is native to Long Island and requires little to no effort to grow it in Long Island’s bays and harbors. The benefit? It helps to improve water quality by removing the harmful nitrogen that causes algae blooms and is also a natural fertilizer.
The plan for the Sugar Kelp Program, which is under the coordination of the Town of Huntington’s Maritime Department, was two-fold;
- reduce harmful nitrogen in our waterways and provide a healthier alternative for fortifying the Town’s landscapes, and
- reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers at the Towns Parks and golf courses by applying the homegrown kelp.
The Town’s results were truly amazing! With the help of Captain Mitch Kramer from TowBoatUS and the donation of the kelp seed from Ms. Wendy Moore, Executive Director and Founder of Lazy Point Farms (www.lazypointfarms.org), the seeded kelp lines were deployed in December near the mouth of Cold Spring Harbor between 4 mooring buoys far removed from boating traffic. The Town of Huntington was now officially kelp farmers!
The sugar kelp growth time line was not only encouraging, it was amazing to watch. In a little over a month, small seedlings starting to emerge along the kelp lines. On the second visit the kelp was growing healthily from the lines. Each visit offered increasingly larger results until heaping bundles of kelp, stretching as much as 5 feet below the lines, were visible.
As Sugar Kelp does not grow in the warmer months, once the water temperature hit 55 degrees, the first Sugar Kelp harvest took place on April 25th, in advance of boating season. The total weight of the wet kelp was 250 pounds, from only two 100-foot lines.
Once dried, the sugar Kelp was processed into powder form, bagged, and shared with eager resident gardeners, excited to try the new fertilizer out on their own plants! Groundskeepers at several Town parks and the two Town golf courses will use the remaining kelp to apply to the grounds as fertilizer.
“The Sugar Kelp project was a resounding success,” said Huntington Town Supervisor Ed Smyth. “We were able to create an end to end green solution to several problems simultaneously. The Town of Huntington plans to expand this project in the Fall of 2023 and into the Spring of 2024 with many more additional kelp lines in all the Towns bays and harbors.”
Kelp is well-known for its value as a soil amendment. It has the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash of conventional fertilizers but, in healthier concentrations. As an organic fertilizer it releases those nutrients and a suite of micronutrients slowly into the soil. Sugar Kelp is known to increase soil moisture retention and stimulate root growth for a variety of plants. Kelp use could help reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers.
For more information on the program contact Garrett Chelius, Deputy Director of Maritime Services at gchelius@huntingtonny.gov. For additional information on the benefits of sugar kelp and sugar kelp in general please go to www.lazypointfarms.org.