| Re: Canal has 80 tonnes of duckweed removed - Stourport Basin, July 2025 Posted by Mark A at 17:55, 27th July 2025 |     |
80 tonnes is impressive ! Does the removed material have any use ?
Pesky carbon atom, but it would be good to trial-feed it to a farmer's methane-gas-producing-kit of the sort that's hooked up to a generator perhaps.
Ah: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFM.B31A0367A/abstract
Mark
| Re: Canal has 80 tonnes of duckweed removed - Stourport Basin, July 2025 Posted by broadgage at 16:10, 27th July 2025 | |
I seem to recall an accident in which a light aircraft crashed into a duckweed covered lake. The pilot believed that it was a nice flat field, and a suitable place for a forced landing.
| Re: Canal has 80 tonnes of duckweed removed - Stourport Basin, July 2025 Posted by broadgage at 16:04, 27th July 2025 | |
80 tonnes is impressive ! Does the removed material have any use ?
Green manure.
Rot it and use as compost.
feed it wet to pigs or other livestock.
Dry it and use for winter cattle feed.
Dry it and use as fuel.
Any chance of natural control measures ? introduce Canada geese, shoot and eat some of the geese. Or presumably ducks, also good to eat.
| Re: Canal has 80 tonnes of duckweed removed - Stourport Basin, July 2025 Posted by Mark A at 14:52, 27th July 2025 | |
An eutrophication symptom, right there. A year back it bit the Stourbridge flight, uphill from Stourport. The newspaper article has video from a drone.
Mark
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/environment/2024/07/29/mystery-solved-over-colour-changing-water-in-canal-which-looked-like-a-green-carpet/
| Re: Canal has 80 tonnes of duckweed removed - Stourport Basin, July 2025 Posted by Richard Fairhurst at 14:23, 27th July 2025 | |
We boated through Stourport yesterday. They haven't completely got rid of it but it's much better than it was. Every time I put my hand down the weed hatch it emerged with a coating of little green specks...
| Canal has 80 tonnes of duckweed removed - Stourport Basin, July 2025 Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 23:37, 26th July 2025 | |
From the BBC:
Five grab lorries were needed to remove a "carpet" of 80 tonnes of duckweed from a canal.
Stourport Basin in Worcestershire, was turned fluorescent green by the tiny, free-floating aquatic plant, and earlier in July it was reported a dog had drowned in the canal after it went into the water.
Charles Hughes from the Canal and Rivers Trust said Stourport Basin had one of the worst incidents of duckweed growth ever seen in the West Midlands, with the entire canal and nearby locations experiencing rapid widespread growth. "We've been spending a lot of money and time trying to deal with this - it was a five day job which cost us £12,500," he said.
"Duckweed is very difficult to manually remove, because it's very small plants, but it can get quite heavy as well. Because they multiply and grow so quickly, they almost form these mats over the surface and often it can be quite deceptive, especially for people who come into an area they are not familiar with. You won't see any open water so it presents a health and safety risk," he added.
The task to remove the plant involved using a weed harvester boat, developed to specifically remove water plants. "We then remove it into a storage called a hopper before we take it away to be disposed of. We had five grab lorries worth which amounted to 80 tonnes of duckweed."
Mr Hughes said as the region experiences hotter and drier weather, it creates the perfect environment for the aquatic plant to grow quickly and invasively. "Over the last five years, we've been having to spend tens of thousands of pounds just in the West Midlands region alone. The annual costs of just managing aquatic weed can come close to the million pound mark," he said.
