‘Azolla’ Aquatic Plant – Good for the Planet

Did you know that Duckweed and Azolla can help to control climate change?

How? Both Azolla and Duckweed are some of the fastest-growing plants that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) and changes it into something else. The plant will die off trapping the CO2 as other molecules.

This can be compared with the Azolla Event during the Eocene era (49 million years ago) where the small aquatic fern, Azolla, took control of Earth’s climate. The fern grew unchecked, absorbed carbon from the atmosphere, and died to the ocean floor taking the carbon with it. After the Azolla Event, the Arctic temperature dropped almost 40°F as the planet entered cyclic ice ages.

Scientists are optimistic because duckweed would absorb about the same amount of carbon as they emit when burned lending to a possible fuel source.

“If we could harvest vast quantities of fast-growing duckweed and dispose of them Azolla-style, we could take their carbon out of the environment entirely”, said Dr. Martienssen, one of the scientists studying this. “Enhanced duckweed could offer an even more effective, longer-lasting way to sequester carbon.”

Taking part in Earth’s future becomes easy.

Azolla is a very small floating fern plant, often called fairy moss, with tiny scale-shaped leaves. It provides a thick lacy velvet carpet of floating bluish-green or, in the autumn a brilliant crimson congested foliage that is very beautiful.

An interesting characteristic of Azolla is that it has a mutual living relationship with alga that fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere for the tiny plant as food. Azolla gets a reddish color in the fall when the sunlight is limited and the green chlorophyll dies off or when it has a little deficiency in nutrients.