HUSHED UP: PESTS, DISEASES, AND WEEDS IN ALGAL MASS CULTURE

All crops on Earth suffer from pests, diseases, and weeds (PDWs), and algae in mass culture are not exempt. Pests and disease agents may be viruses, bacteria, protozoa of various types, fungi and fungus-like organisms, and micro-invertebrate animals.

Arguably, the knowledge base for PDWs is inadequate to support the growth of algal biomass industries. Commonly, PDWs are "emerging", with the agents new to science, or poorly known and with little or no prior knowledge of their ability to attack algal biomass cultures.

Research support is meager. Effort is further impeded by the reluctance of the industry to discuss the issue, lest the result be backlash from consumers and investors, or loss of advantage vs competitors. Moreover, algae from mass culture may themselves become invasive weeds, with negative regulatory consequences for the industry. Release of a crop species from the PDWs that affect it in its native habitat may contribute to that species becoming troublesome.

Investigations likely to be helpful include those on PDW biodiversity, on assessing direct and indirect impacts of PDWs on crop species (including how these PDWs affect different life history stages of the same crop species), on the identification of PDW reservoirs in production and surrounding natural environments, and on discovering effective mitigation and non-dissemination strategies.