The discovery of seaweed’s effect on cows is relatively recent, and was made entirely accidentally.

Joe Dorgan, a farmer who let his cows graze on washed-up seaweed, noticed that his cows that were consuming the shoreside plant produced more milk, had better pregnancy success, and suffered less from mastitis. He began to share his findings, and it was discovered that on top of the list of benefits already known, this seaweed decreased the cows’ methane outputs by 18%.

After being enlightened to these novel findings, it was believed that there would likely be a different species of seaweed that eliminated even more methane. This research led to the extremely effective asparagopsis taxiformis, which can reduce methane emissions from a cow by up to 98%, and only needs to make up .002 parts of its diet. The asparagopsis species have specialized glands that make and store bromoform, which was discussed in the last edition of the Synopsis, and blocks carbon and hydrogen from forming methane.

Farms are beginning to be constructed for the large-scale production of this powerful plant. Growth is possible both underwater and in tanks on land, but farming it underwater requires less energy, along with reaping the cleaning benefits of the seaweed, which feeds off of carbon and nitrogen.

A company growing the seaweed on land is Blue Ocean Barns, which is funded by multiple companies, including Starbucks, that see the potential and value of asparagopsis and are determined to reduce the emissions from their supply chains.

Yay for seaweed!

Honestly, this topic is so cool. Expanding my sources really helped me, but in a pretty funny way. Looking up asparagopsis taxiformis led me to Joe Dorgan, the man I had searched for when writing my last Synopsis. The websites I was flicking through included a lot of introduction and seemed redundant of the facts I’d learned during research for my last episode. So I searched for Joe Dorgan on one of my databases and immediately found an incredibly useful article that I ended up using for this entire Synopsis. Kind of ironic, but I’m grateful either way.

It was really cool to learn about the discovery of seaweed’s impact on cows and current production. I’m really glad I’m doing this project (as in, this whole silly blog) and that I’m keeping up with it every week. Even if it takes up my precious precious weekend time.

Also, I think I’m starting to get a lot more comfortable with this format. My titles are already becoming more fun, and I have no intent to stop here.

Thank you (who is you? I have no readers.) for following my seaweed storyline, and stay tuned to learn with me!

Schlossberg, Tatiana. “An unusual snack for cows, a powerful fix for climate.” Washington Post, 27 Nov. 2020. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A642964055/OVIC?u=ante588&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=fdff2052. Accessed 10 Oct. 2022.