Is Growing Duckweed or Water Lentils Profitable?

A lot of people have been benefiting from duckweed. Many even create businesses based entirely on duckweed. Even the show ”The Doctors” featured duckweed powder in their show. Here is a link to the YouTube video: What’s the Real Deal: Duckweed?.

In case you’re not familiar with the American television show “The Doctors”, it is a medical show predominantly hosted by real doctors. The show has a lot of followers and is very influential in terms of medical issues in the US.

The show termed duckweed as “the next superfood” and they even taste-tested it. With the hosts describing that duckweed tastes like green tea, seaweed, or “its like drinking river water”.

According to a 5 year Google Trends chart, interest for the duckweed plant has slowly been growing with a lot of countries showing good interest to it especially Asian, North American and European countries.

The proper name for duckweed is Lemnoideae which is a subfamily of flowering aquatic plants. Duckweeds are also known as water lentils, water lenses or bayroot. Duckweed plants float on or just beneath the surface of still or slow-moving fresh water. They also grow on wetlands. These plants have a simple structure and lack stems or leaves but have air pockets which allows it to float on or just under the water surface.

Duckweeds usually grow in mineral and nutrient rich water which is one of the features which make this plant special. Not many plants can grow in mineral and nutrient water because too much mineral and nutrient can essentially choke a plant or poison them.

In nature, duckweed is an important high-protein food source for waterfowls and other birds. Duckweeds also act as protective covers or hiding places for many small fishes against much bigger predators.

Duckweed is also used as a sunshade by pond-water species such as frogs and fishes like bluegills. They also help inhibit the growth of algae by blocking the light from the sun which is very important for algae growth.

There are some people in Southeast Asia who regularly eat duckweed. Duckweed is richer in protein as compared to soybeans which in itself is already very rich in protein. In fact, many experts believe that duckweed could be a very good potential food source.

A European study conducted in the European markets found that consumers showed a strong positive reaction to the incorporation of duckweed in their food. Even NASA acknowledged that duckweed could be a strong candidate for food growing in Mars should it happen.

But there are already businesspeople who are taking duckweed to the next level. They are not only marketing and selling duckweed as food but also as food supplement. Here is a video from a duckweed supplement company: WORLD'S MOST NUTRIENT DENSE PROTEIN!.

You can sell duckweed in their raw form, as a powder, a tablet and so on. You can also mix duckweed in some of the food and supplements that you sell and market it as a protein shake for example.

There are also a lot of people growing duckweed as a food or supplement for their animals. Some of the animals that eat duckweed are: pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, fishes and shrimps. Although they are usually used as a food supplement.

Just like human food and supplements, you can sell duckweed in their raw form, as a powder, a tablet and so on. You can also mix duckweed with other foods and supplements to create your own special animal feed product.

In fact, animals have been used for ages to control the growth of duckweed plants in water. In case you’re not aware, duckweed plants grow and multiply so fast that they are considered invasive plants in many parts of the world.

Animals, most especially fishes have been used to control the growth of duckweed plants. In fact, duckweed is one of the staple foods for the tilapia fish which is known to be a voracious eater of duckweed.

So, if you know of any fish breeder whether a fish farmer or just someone who has their own fishpond, you can sell them duckweed plants not only as food for their fish but for their own consumption as well.

Before we continue, let me emphasize that under ideal conditions, duckweed grows and multiplies very fast. Many duckweed growers state that duckweed can grow twice in just a matter of 24 to 48 hours.

This is very fast indeed and is very good news. Imagine if you are a supplier of duckweed, you can essentially double your inventories within one to two days. I don’t know if there is a plant that grows this fast.

You can essentially halve the price of your duckweed inventories every two days and still make your original profit. Another thing to consider is that duckweed is very hardy. It grows especially well in very mineral and nutrient dense waters like wetlands.

This means that duckweed can grow in waters that not so many plants can tolerate. In case you’re wondering, while mineral and nutrients are good for a plant, too much can actually harm the growth of a plant.

In fact, duckweed can even grow in polluted water. It is even used to clean polluted water by absorbing the water pollutants. So in essence, you can also sell duckweed plants as a water cleanser.

Besides being used as a natural biological cleansing agent for cleaning polluted or dirty water, duckweed is also used as biomass fuel. It can be converted to Gasoline, Diesel, and Jet Fuel which is very good news.

Just consider this scenario: You have a pond that is either polluted or that is so mineral and nutrient dense that not many plants and animals can live in it. You simply introduce duckweed and let it for the most part propagate in you entire pond.

You then harvest your duckweed every one or two days and turn it into biofuel. This basically means that you have biofuel supply on almost a daily basis that you could use yourself or sell. This is almost a never ending resource.

This is very ideal for areas in the world where polluted waters are a problem and where cheap or almost free fuel is unavailable. As you can see, this scenario mainly applies to poor and developing countries. Imagine if this idea is implemented in such countries.

Duckweed is also known as a herbal medicine in many Asian countries. There are Chinese herbal medicine sellers for example who state that the duckweed plant is good for treating inflamed upper airways.

Duckweed is also believed to be a good treatment for yellowed skin due to liver problems or jaundice. It is also believed that the plant is good for arthritis. However, let me state that so far, there have been no medical studies that confirms these so-called medicinal benefits.

But there is one thing everyone can be sure about: duckweed is high in protein and is especially helpful for diseases that are caused by protein deficiency. In fact, a lot of people in the world today have protein deficiencies.

But what diseases are associated with protein deficiency? There are two main diseases associated with protein deficiencies: Kwashiorkor and Marasmus. Kwashiorkor affects millions of children worldwide.

When it was first described in 1935, more than 90 percent of children with Kwashiorkor died. This is according to the American Center for Disease Control or CDC. A serious protein deficiency can cause swelling, fatty liver, skin degeneration and stunt growth in children.

The duckweed plant has many benefits. It is rich in protein and other nutrients and is ideal as food or supplement for both humans and animals. In fact, animals are used to control the growth of duckweed which can double in mass every one to two days.

The plant is also good at cleansing polluted and dirty water. The plant can also be a very good source of plentiful biofuels which can be converted to Gasoline, Diesel and even Jet Fuel. The plant even have the potential to be one of our main food in Mars should we colonize it one day.

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