What is Azolla?

Azolla is a freshwater - fast growing fern type plant that is known to be used as natural fertilizer in paddy fields for more than 1500 years. From 17th century the Azolla has been used as compost. Nowadays, the Azolla fern is used as natural fertilizer as well as fresh feed to the live-stock such as chickens, hens, turkeys, fish, rabbits, goat, sheep, pigs, cattle and cows. All of these animals love to eat Azolla.

In some parts of the earth, specially Karnataka in India, the people consume Azolla, though the pros and cons of human consumption is not confirmed by long term studies.

The Azolla is rich in Protein and Amino acids which accounts for 25 to 30 % of the mass. The plant has minerals about 8 to 10 %. Azolla lacks in Carbohydrates and Fat. It is reported that the body mass of the livestock increases fast when feeding your animals with Azolla. Also, the studies indicates high milk production.

You can harvest 800 to 1000 g of live plants (livestock food) from every square meter (that is 8 - 10 tons / ha). This is enough to feed 10 to 15 chickens for a whole day. As the plant doubles its mass in a few days, it is possible to feed your livestock with small piece of land in your backyard. If you need more food to be produced, you may also use aquaponic fodder system to maximize the production.

Azolla reproduces sexually and asexually. The sexual reproduction leads to spore formation which is occurs during summer months and the asexual reproduction is done by splitting.

Apart from the fertilizer and live-stock feed, the Azolla is also known as a mosquito repellent as the plant floats on the water surface and make a mat that prevents the mosquito from laying eggs on the water surfaces as well as preventing the mosquito larvae to reach the surface to get oxygen. Because of this feature, the Azolla fern is also known as Mosquito fern.

Azolla is a high productive plant that doubles it fresh mass in 2 to 3 days under optimal conditions. However, you can expect to double the mass of Azolla within 3 to 10 days with most of the conditions. Actually the plant doesn't look like as the most of other ferns, but looks like as duckweed or mosses. The plant is very small, only a few centimeters in width, float on the water, has water repellent leaves and hanging roots into the water. Cyanobacterium (Anabaena azollae) forms symbiotic relationship with the plant and fixes atmospheric nitrogen and gives the enough nutrients to the plant and make it to double the mass in 2 to 3 days. This feature has gained the name "super-plant" to Azolla.

As it is the water floating plant, the Azolla always needs water. Without water the plant won't survive. Therefore the areas like north pole and south pole of the earth and high altitude mountain areas where the ice covers the water surface or in extremely dry areas, the plant can't thrive. In such areas, the Azolla is grown as an ornamental plant. The plant is also used as ornamental plant in aquariums and ponds around the world.

The phosphorous is the known limiting factor of the growth of Azolla. The plant gets phosphorous in the water and grows fast. Therefore, the plant can be used as phosphate remover from the industrial waste water. You may use the phosphate containing fertilizer to maximize the production of Azolla. Azolla also can remove lead, zing, chromium, copper and nickel from the water. So, we can consider Azolla as an eco-friendly plant.