The ‘Brainwaves’ project, which is being led by University College Cork, will use duckweed to treat wastewater, typically slurry, from both beef and dairy farms.

Duckweed has a natural ability to thrive in and purify polluted water and is amongst the fastest-growing plants. 

It is also edible and considered a supply of animal feed which is high in protein, making it a promising feed-stock to replace costly soybean.

Led by Prof Marcel Jansen of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Environmental Research Institute, the project ‘Brainwaves’ has just received € 1.4 million in funding under the Ireland Wales 2014-2020 European Territorial Co-operation (ETC) programme. 

Prof Jansen speaking at the launch of the project said, “The availability of copious amounts of cheap, chemical fertilisers can’t be taken for granted any longer, and novel techniques are required to re-use plant nutrients and enhance the environmental sustainability of modern agriculture across the board. In Europe as a whole we have duckweed as a neglected source of high quality protein, and excellent potential as a feed additive.”

Speaking to That’s Farming, Professor Marcel Jansen, environmental plant biology at University College Cork, said:

“BRAINWAVES will develop a circular economic approach to manage the thin fraction of slurry, developing technology to remediate this wastewater, to generate economically valuable feed, and, thus, to enhance the competitiveness of the beef and dairy industry in Ireland and Wales.”

“Brainwaves is looking at farmyard slurry, enormous amounts of which need to be stored,” professor Jansen explains.

In concentrated amounts slurry is a good fertiliser, he explains, adding however, that farms also have enormous amounts of a watery slurry known as ‘thin fraction’ slurry:

“There are enormous volumes of this across Ireland. Farmers must store it, so what we want to come up with are ways of using thin fraction slurry to generate value.”

Researchers in UCC and Wales are collaborating on three newly launched environmental projects, which focus on the shared natural heritage between our two countries and our joint responsibility to preserve it.

The team has found a specific plant species, duckweed, or Lemna, that can grow on thin fraction slurry — and which can be turned into nutritious, low-cost animal feed: “Duckweed or Lemna is an aquatic plant that floats on the water and grows very fast.

“There’s no other plant which grows as fast as duckweed. It can double in size in just two days — and it can grow on thin fracture slurry.”

The other important thing about duckweed is that it also has a very high protein content: “Duckweed is not just high in protein but it is the right protein.

“It is believed to be as nutritious as soybean which is widely used in the agricultural industry as feed-stuff for animals,” Professor Jansen explains.