Global Climate Change Action

One of the fastest growing plants known, water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) reproduces primarily by way of runners or stolons, which eventually form daughter plants. It also produces large quantities of seeds, and these are viable up to thirty years. The common water hyacinth are vigorous growers known to double their population in two weeks.

Water Hyacinth is a weed which provides a natural filtering system for the waters in our rivers, removing nutrient rich run off from monoculture farming systems, acting as a "buffer zone" before those nutrients reach our oceans and inshore reef systems and the precious Great Barrier Reef.

The plant is extremely tolerant of, and has a high capacity for, the uptake of heavy metals, including Cd, Cr, Co, Ni, Pb and Hg, which could make it suitable for the biocleaning of industrial wastewater. In addition to heavy metals, Eichhornia crassipes can also remove other toxins, such as cyanide, which is environmentally beneficial in areas that have endured gold mining operations.

Water hyacinth is also observed to enhance nitrification in waste water treatment cells of living technology. Their root zones are superb micro-sites for bacterial communities.

Australia needs to grow away from the "control and destroy" mentality and move to "utilise and capitalise" on this introduced water- weed.

Products:

Water hyacinth is;

- very easy to manually harvest as it floats on the surface and can gathered by skimming.
- beneficial to our water systems feeding on excess nitrogen inputs from farming and suburban run off.
- once removed from the surface, the water below is crysal clear and clean.
- when returned to the soil as a conditioning agent (or green mulch) it reduces the need for fertilisation, watering and weeding.

Local testing within the Sugar industry showed an increased productivity yeild of up to 300% on some farms.

We currently poison this weed with "frog friendly" glyphosate. Poisoning our river systems further will not remove the weed as the seed is viable for long periods of time, beneath the surface, meaning that if just one flower survives to seed, the local government will need to continue poisoning our waterways for at least the next 30 years.

From water weed, to soil, with up to 300% increase in productivity in the Sugar Cane Industry (alone) this is a weed worthy of keeping in place not only to protect, but to improve conditions of waterways and soil and to supply a sustainable feedstock for the creation of further value added industry.

Further images of Products:

http://www.google.com.au/images?q=water%20hyacynth%20products&oe=utf-8&r...

Additional Information and informative links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_hyacinth