Healthy dune ecosystem

Secondary dune near launch pads attracts new residents

PUNTA GORDA, FL – November 19, 2011 – Aquatic Plants of Florida, Inc. will attend and exhibit today at the twelfth annual Charlotte Harbor Nature Festival sponsored by the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program. This one day event offers a day to explore, learn and enjoy the natural environment of southwest Florida and connect with nature.

Attendees can visit tents dedicated for environmental stewards, arts of nature, children’s discovery zone, knowing nature, and a Florida-friendly zone or take wagon rides and guided walks to see local flora and fauna.

More information is available at www.CHNEP.org.

FSU

TALLAHASSEE, FL – November 1, 2011 – Aquatic Plants of Florida, Inc. (Aquatic Plants) announced today it will exhibit at the 38th annual Natural Areas Conference held at Florida State University from November 1 – 4, 2011.

The conference is hosted by the Natural Areas Association (NAA) with co-host National Association of Exotic Pest Plant Councils (NAEPPC). This year’s event focuses on the adaptation and protection of biodiversity, in the face of climate change.

Session Topics:
Species and Communities Conservation, Invasive Exotic Species Management, Fire Management, Conservation Planning, Monitoring and Tracking of Species and Communities, Conservation at the Landscape Level, Forest Health, Cogongrass Control, Geologic and Climatic Factors in Conservation, Ecosystem and Habitat Restoration, and Current Research and Land Management Techniques.

Aquatic Plants provides federal, state, and local agencies with native plants and habitat restoration services for environmental projects in the US and Caribbean. The company also works with non-profit and civic groups to protect and rebuild natural resources.

Conference sessions and workshops will be held at the Florida State University Conference Center at 555 W. Pensacola Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1640. More information is available on the conference website at http://www.naturalarea.org/11conference/.

After a ceremonial groundbreaking event, volunteers will spend time maintaining the property and planting native trees and grasses donated by Aquatic Plants of Florida around the Lagoon House building, a stormwater retention pond, and adjacent areas.

Plant species to be included on the ECOSCAPE DAY volunteer initiative are Bald Cypress, Dahoon Holly, Laurel Oak, Sand Cordgrass, Soft Rush, Giant Bulrush, Muhly Grass, and Black Needlerush.

About Lagoon House

The Lagoon House serves as the welcome center for the Indian River Lagoon National Scenic Byway. It is a scenic corridor that includes three national wildlife refuges, dozens of national, state and local parks and preserves, hundreds of historical buildings, links 17 cities and two counties and begins right in Palm Bay.

About Anglers for Conservation

The Anglers for Conservation is a non-profit organization with regional chapters representing sport fishing anglers everywhere who share our interest and concerns for marine and estuarine habitats, water quality and the many factors affecting recreational sport fishing.

The AFC’s mission is to create a new generation of marine stewards using community-based angling education, habitat restoration and applied conservation science. Through funding from individual donors and grants from foundations and the government, the AFC offers its programs to various groups in the general public and community. More info is available at http://www.anglersforconservation.org.

To volunteer, please call (321) 725-7775 or email council@mrcirl.org.

Aquatic Plants completed a contract to restore 8.2 miles of Pensacola Beach. Working in conjunction with the Santa Rosa Island Authority, Escambia County, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the engineering firm of Olsen and Associates; Aquatic Plants sucessfully finished the beach restoration on Santa Rosa Island.

Sand fences were erected and Florida native plants were installed. The fences will trap wind-blown sand causing the new dunes to grow in volume and the dune vegetation will not only enhance the appearance of the new dunes, while the plant roots will aid in its stabilization. Aquatic Plants has grown and installed over 1,000,000 plants including sea oats and other salt-tolerant plants.

Phase 1 and 2 of the project are completed. Aquatic Plants finished this project two months ahead of schedule.

NAPLES, FL – July 20, 2011 – Aquatic Plants of Florida, Inc. announced today it was attending the Florida Chamber Foundation’s 25th annual summer school environmental permitting conference in Marco Island, Florida as an exhibitor. The event was produced in cooperation with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida’s water management districts.

Aquatic Plants of Florida constructed a green exhibit (#23), located in the Marriott Marco Island Resort’s Islands Ballroom, highligting dozens of native plant species used to restore native ecosystems. Conference attendees were offered hundreds of complementary native plants at the event along with native plant information.

Welcoming remarks and the keynote address was provided by David Hart, executive vice president, Florida Chamber of Commerce, and keynote speaker, Herschel Vinyard, Secretary, Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Other speakers during the three day event, included Jeff Littlejohn, P.E., Deputy Secretary for Regulatory Programs, and Melissa L. Meeker, Executive Director, South Florida Water Management District.

Attendees of series of courses and formal discussion sessions included: attorneys, architects, landscape architects, surveyors & mappers, environmental managers, elected officials, property appraisers, local government, environmental consultants, local chambers, water management districts, builders & contractors, business, industry, engineers, planners and more.

Online registration and continuing education information is available at www.floridaenet.com.

Jackson County, MS

PASCAGOULA, MS – April 14, 2011 – Aquatic Plants of Florida, Inc., one of the industry’s easliest providers of wholesale native plants and trees, announced today it completed work at Pascagoula Beach, Mississippi on a restoration project, as part of the Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program (MsCIP).

The US Army Corps of Engineers project initially involved the repair of a concaved seawall, replacement and extension of existing drainage structures, fill and placement of 7,700 feet of geotubes, excavation of almost 290,000 cubic yards of sand, and extensive sand placement on the Pascagoula waterfront in the Mississippi Sound.

During the planning stage, engineering and analysis revealed the project was in need of beach toe protection to minimize the effect of erosion due to high wave energy from the Mississippi Sound. Project engineers determined vegetative and man-made erosion-control methods were warranted to reduce erosion and to protect existing geotubes.

One of project concerns included the high wave energy of the Mississippi Sound, which could result in lost sediment that would likely migrate into areas of shipping traffic and increase future frequency of needed dredging intervals.

Vegetation chosen for the project included Spartina patens or more commonly known as marsh hay cordgrass. Erosion control methods can extend the life of beach restoration projects and increase the time before re-nourishment is needed. Planting of vegetation along beaches also improves wildlife habitat for marine and terrestrial species. 

Coastal Mississippi consists of diverse habitats including beaches, sand dunes, coastal maritime forests, emergent wetlands, submerged aquatic vegetation, rivers, tidal creeks, tidal flats forested wetlands and more. Likewise, the coastal flora and fauna in Mississippi are extensive. Mississippi is home to essential fish habitat as defined in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

Aquatic Plants of Florida successfully grew 362,500 patens for the Mississippi project and installed the coastal plants in Spring 2011 ahead of schedule.   

This year’s event gave a practical nursery-business-survival talk about the industry.

Speaker, Dr. Alan Hodges offered the low-down on how to figure out what it costs to run nurseries, grow and sell plants, and how to develop pricing strategies that let farms keep on growing.  His presentation addressed market trends in the Florida nursery industry, economic impacts, financial benchmark analysis, product cost analysis and pricing, and he demonstrated online business analysis and marketing tools.

Additionally, Dr. Mike Kane, Professor and Assistant Chair, UF Environmental Horticulture Dept., co-presented on primary interests including applied plant ecology, restoration, wetland ecology, invasive species control and native species establishment.

Mote’s earth-friendly fish farm is about to get even greener — a large-scale project is getting under way this week that will begin using solid fish waste to grow saltwater plants for restoration projects.
The project is designed to be a model of how saltwater fish farms can cost-effectively recycle all of their waste — a goal commercial-scale aquaculture has yet to achieve. The move is a key step forward for sustainable aquaculture at Mote.

The project builds on Mote’s longstanding efforts at Mote Aquaculture Research Park (MAP), which raises saltwater fish more than 17 miles inland using 100-percent recirculated water. This process releases no waste into the oceans, but until now has produced some dry solid waste that had to be disposed of on land.

Growing plants to clean water from aquaculture is a centuries-old technique. In fact, Mote has been growing wetland plants at MAP since 2006. But the water used to grow those plants comes from Mote’s freshwater sturgeon production facility.

Since Mote’s saltwater systems re-use 100 percent of the aquaculture water from snook and pompano studies, there is no water discharged. Instead, in this expanded program, Mote will use the solids.
By using this waste to feed saltwater plants – and doing it on a large enough scale to translate to commercial operations – this innovative system could serve as a model for sustainable marine aquaculture efforts across the nation and beyond.

“For years, Mote has developed recirculating aquaculture technology to reduce the environmental impact of producing seafood – but there’s still is an impact if you can’t use the solid waste,” said Dr. Kevan Main, Director of Mote’s Center for Aquaculture Research and Development and leader of the project. “When I show people around Mote’s facility and point out that the saltwater is completely recirculated, some observant person will ask, ‘Where do the solids go?’ Now we’ll be using them up to grow plants for coastal environments.”

The project, led by Mote scientists and funded through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Grant program, is part of a 2-year study with partners from Aquatic Plants of Florida, Inc., a Sarasota business that grows plants for environmental restoration, the University of South Florida, Auburn University in Alabama and Aqua Green a private aquaculture company in Mississippi.

“Totally closed saltwater systems have been examined on an experimental basis, but to our knowledge they haven’t been done at this scale,” Main said. “We have a full production unit capable of producing 40,000 fingerling [juvenile] fish and their waste will feed nearly 110,000 plants.”

The waste will come from facilities used to grow Florida pompano, a popular sport fish that is currently bred, hatched and raised at MAP.

The pompano waste will feed two large tanks in a greenhouse stocked with three plant species: black needle rush, red mangrove and smooth cordgrass. All three are commonly used by local, state and federal governments to restore coastal environments after impacts such as hurricanes, oil spills and other environmental disasters.

Another part of this project, led by Auburn University and Aqua Green, will involve recycling pompano waste in a different process and using it to grow three types of algae that produce agar and carageenan — substances used as food additives, including in many products on grocery store shelves.

The plants from Mote will be sold for environmental restoration projects by staff at Aquatic Plants of Florida, who started producing and distributing freshwater plants through a research partnership with Mote in 2006.

The plants will be grown mainly for Florida restoration projects, but some smooth cordgrass will be stock from Louisiana. That cordgrass could, in time, be used to mitigate damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, if cordgrass harmed by the spill does not rebound on its own. Cordgrass is a major component of estuaries, providing habitats for coastal and marine wildlife and, in the case of the spill, it also kept oil from reaching many plant species closer to dry land.

For the current project, the partners aim to produce one crop of saltwater plants in spring 2011 and another in summer. “The species of plants we’re using and the way we’re growing them is designed to fit with restoration projects,” said Gil Sharell, founder and president of Aquatic Plants of Florida. “We’ve already had success with producing freshwater plants at Mote for restoration. It seems like natural progression to go from fresh to salt.”

Scientists at USF and Mote will evaluate how efficiently the plants take up nitrogen and phosphorous, chemicals in the fish waste that plants need to grow.

Project partners will evaluate the costs and benefits of this new system for producing pompano as well as beneficial plants, to compare the economics of this system with current industry practices.

Hayley Rutger
Public Relations Specialist
Mote Marine Laboratory / Mote Aquarium
(941) 388-4441, Ext. 365
hrutger@mote.org