Shrimp Shell Meal
Question from George:
I’m having problems finding the shrimp shell meal you talked about at the fairgrounds the other day, the only place I can find it is on line and its a 50lb bag. If I bought the 50lb bag how long can I store it and it still be good. It would take me maybe 2 or 3 years to use that much with my small garden. How much would I use per square ft.?
Answer from Pat:
Shrimp shell meal appears to be an effective control for nematodes. As I stated in my talk at the San Diego Fairgrounds it contains chitin (the material out of which the exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans are made.) It also contains chitinase (an enzyme that eats up and destroys chitin.) The effect is slow starting since when combined with soil the chitinase first spends approximately four months consuming the chitin in the shrimp shell product and then having nothing else to eat and having multiplied, the chitinase consumes the nematodes and the effect can be reasonably long-lasting but one might need to add small quantities to the garden soil. (Not having used the product myself I am not sure of the intervals at which it needs to be added.)
The answer to your question about amounts to use can be found on the website of Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply but you will need to do some math to figure out how to use a small amount. I would just try with a pound or two for ten square feet being aware that it works best in moist soil and also is somewhat alkaline. Here is the link for shrimp shell meal. http://www.groworganic.com/shrimp-shell-meal-50-lb.html. It’s worth every penny since it really appears to be working and some people mix some into their compost.
Up to now I have not found a source of smaller quantities of shrimp shell meal. As I also stated in my talk, the only regular source I know of is Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply which sells the product for agricultural purposes in fifty pound bags. It is unfortunate that some of the effective organic products are sold in containers too large for home gardeners. Until this problem is cured, each home gardener who has this problem needs to find his or her own solution. Some company could make a good business of bagging this product in smaller quantities and selling it to organic gardeners. You might try Cedros Gardens and see if they carry it in smaller containers. Anderson’s Nursery in San Diego is another possibility.
I cannot solve the amount problem, but suggest you bag some and share with friends or a garden club. My ideas for you are these: Contact an organic gardening club and see if they wish to share the unused remainder of what you will have. Bag it in smaller plastic and brown paper bags and sell it yourself on e-Bay. You might find it sells well if you write the ad in a good way to attract sales. You could even try selling it to a local nursery that sells organic products. Or sell it yourself at meetings of the San Diego Horticultural Society. It might sell quite well if you write a good label.
One of my daughters used this product in her own home garden. I am unsure of the exact amount she used since she said when I asked that she used “a few pounds”. She added it to her raised beds in which she had a bad nematode problem. It worked for her and all her vegetables are now flourishing. There are no package directions but she read the information on the website and figured all she needed was only a few cups for the size of the area she needed to cover. I am sorry I am unable to give more specifics on how much to add. Phone or email Peaceful Valley to find out how long you can store it. My daughter has had her bag of this product for 6 months so far and it still works.
I make and sell shrimp shell meal at a very inexpensive price. Please feel free to call me at 251-599-4148. Kat
Whereas I have not had a bad nematode problem myself, at least not for many years, my daughter’s vegetables in raised beds were afflicted with nematodes last year. She could not figure out how it happened, but surmised they got into the bed from the ground below or possibly they arrived in the soil with which she filled the bed. I told her about shrimp shell meal so she sent for a big bag of it, and mixed it into the beds according to package directions. It totally eradicated the nematodes. She pulled up a few bean plants and this year the roots are perfect—no more knots on the roots that ruined the plants last year— but she did have problems with alkalinity. This year a new problem has arisen which I warned her might happen from salts in the shell meal. Though the bean plants this year are not damaged by root knot nematodes the tips and edges of the leaves have gone crisp and brown instead of green, a sign which indicates salt damage. The beans seem to be growing fine despite this problem but I would think there might be a way to avoid the alkalinity that comes from shrimp shell meal.
Since you actually make your own shrimp shell meal, usually a by-product of the shrimp fishing or shrimp-canning or shrimp-freezing industries, would there be a way to wash the salts out of the shells before drying grinding and bagging them into shrimp shell meal? If you could manage this you would have a superior shrimp shell meal that gardeners would prefer.
I have been telling my seminar attendees about shrimp shell meal since it does indeed, as far as I have been able to determine, get rid of nematodes, but the alkaline salts in it are a problem that one needs to solve. One of the questions a gardener asked at a seminar was, “Would it work to use the shells of shrimps eaten for dinner?” I said I didn’t know why not, but suggested she rinse them first or maybe soak them overnight to get out the salt used in cooking and then chop them up before mixing them into garden soil.
Rainfall in winter can help wash salts out of the ground but though we had heavy rains this year it was not enough to cure the problem for my daughter. I have suggested that she apply gypsum to the soil since it does no harm and might help. Theoretically the calcium in the gypsum could combine with the alkaline sodium atoms so they could percolate out of the soil thus reducing alkalinity. Perhaps you could talk to a chemical engineer and discuss this with him. I suggest perhaps you could offer a product in which gypsum would already be an ingredient. A negative aspect would be that it would add weight which would add to shipping costs. Another idea, as I already mentioned is that you could wash the shells and dry them before grinding them. You would need first to test the shells themselves first to see if the sodium is actually part of the shell itself (which I doubt) or simply left over from the ocean salts that stuck to them or left over from salt used to preserve shrimp (quite likely to be the case) or from salt used in cooking (very possible if the shells are cooked prior to making the shrimp shell meal.)
I know this is an old thread, but hopefully my post will address the salt issue. I use my leftover shells from dinner to first make stock, then dry and use the meal.
Thanks for this helpful tip. I will suggest this at my talks. Someone always asks why not use shrimp shells from the kitchen. Indeed why not? Your method would remove virtually all of the salt.
Pat,
Due to the salt I have to wash down the shells many times. I have purchased shell meal and have found it to be very salty.I wash mine until I get a neutral ph level. For your gardener; tell him its ok to use the shrimp shells from dinner just make sure they are completely dried. If he puts it in his garden wet he is going to have more cats than he asked for. What kind of seminars do you do?
Thank you so much for your information. For the information of my readers, where do you sell your shrimp shell meal and where do you live?
To answer your question regarding seminars, I write books and I give slide shows, seminars, demonstrations and talks together with book signings, mainly in Southern California and I try to confine these events to two months of the year: March and September.
I visited my daughter, Wendy Woolf, today and she showed me her raised beds now planted with summer crops growing very successfully. She used shrimp shell meal and her nematode problem is totally gone. Also she has inter-planted her vegetables with Tagetes patula ‘Nemagold’ and thinks this works and it probably does help mix up pests. (However, scientific tests show you have to plant these marigolds solidly in a bed and leave them for an entire season to eradicate nematodes.) Shrimp shell meal works faster.
We have “whole” shrimp shells and shrimp parts from 1lb – 2 ton totes! Visit us at http://www.soil-restore.com