Editing Algae (section)

===Fertilizer===
{{Details|Seaweed fertiliser}}
[[File:Inisheer landscape.jpg|thumb|Seaweed-fertilized gardens on [[Inisheer]]]]
For centuries, seaweed has been used as a fertilizer; [[George Owen of Henllys]] writing in the 16th century referring to drift weed in [[South Wales]]:<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England |volume=10 |pages=142–143 |title=On the Farming of South Wales: Prize Report |first=Clare Sewell |last=Read |author-link=Clare Sewell Read |year=1849 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=UJYEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA142}}</ref>
{{Quote|This kind of ore they often gather and lay on great heapes, where it heteth and rotteth, and will have a strong and loathsome smell; when being so rotten they cast on the land, as they do their muck, and thereof springeth good corn, especially barley&nbsp;... After spring-tydes or great rigs of the sea, they fetch it in sacks on horse backes, and carie the same three, four, or five miles, and cast it on the lande, which doth very much better the ground for corn and grass.}}

Today, algae are used by humans in many ways; for example, as [[fertilizer]]s, [[soil conditioner]]s, and livestock feed.<ref>{{cite book |last=McHugh |first=Dennis J. |title=A Guide to the Seaweed Industry: FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 441 |chapter-url= http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/006/Y4765E/y4765e0c.htm#TopOfPage |date=2003 |publisher=Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations |location=Rome |isbn=978-92-5-104958-7|chapter=9, Other Uses of Seaweeds |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081228115716/http://www.fao.org/docrep/006/y4765e/y4765e0c.htm#TopOfPage |archive-date=28 December 2008}}</ref> Aquatic and microscopic species are cultured in clear tanks or ponds and are either harvested or used to treat effluents pumped through the ponds. [[Algaculture]] on a large scale is an important type of [[aquaculture]] in some places. [[Maerl]] is commonly used as a soil conditioner.