Water hyacinth

I wanted to grow some water hyacinth this year so I bought two and placed them in my rain barrels.
This was the fist month.

The water hyacinth started showing signs of dying, they were turning white.
So I experiment by submerging logs in the barrel to measure how much water they could hold.
Two weeks later the water hyacinth starts greening again, I suspect it may have been from the rapid growth of algae on the wood.
The end result was the growth from 2 to 72 or more plants.

That growth rate is why this is the world's most expensive invasive water plant. It can pile up 3 feet deep in canals, stopping boat traffic and consuming dissolved oxygen which kills the fish when a die off of hyacinth occurs. The state of Florida has spent many millions controlling this one. It has forever altered some Indian waterways and others throughout the tropics. But it's a really cool thing to grow in a pond and can be used as a means of trapping nutrients from the water and adding them to the garden or compost. It's like a slow release water capsule with nutrient value.

I'm interested in the mini version for a future greywater pond. Along with duckweed, fairy moss, mini cattails, water iris and a few others

Interesting that the addition of logs were enough to spur on the growth. I have water hyacinths in my ponds and irrigation catchment tank in order to help keep the water clear and provide shade & shelter for the guppies. The guppies are there to eat mosquito larvae. Any excess water hyacinths are fed to the chickens and rabbits. I don't have lots of excess, otherwise I'd add it to the compost too.

Florida has a major problem with this plant. Don't lots of people down there garden? It would be a great addition to compost and soil. We had a large pond here on Big Island that had gotten choked out with water hyacinth. When a group decided to clean out the pond, people lined up with pickup trucks to cart the plants away.....directly to their gardens. Resources like that don't go to waste around here. Shame Florida hasn't discovered how to utilize their excess water hyacinth.

...Su Ba
www.kaufarmer.blogspot.com

Composting the plants was exactly what I was thinking, Im definitely going to do that.
Iv been wondering if it would be possible to raise fish in the first barel, all I would need is a bubbler, I have however successfully raised tad polls in them.