SEAGRASSPONICS ISLAND LIVING, THE PHILIPPINES

BIOPRODUCTS FROM THE PHILIPPINES

GOAT DAIRYING & CHEESE-MAKING IN NEGROS ISLAND, THE PHILIPPINES

The three (3) major economic attributions, at least initially, of seagrass culture is to differentiate in the marketplace production parameters that are as ff.: a) the products being grass-fed for both dairy and beef, b) that primarily of dairy production, and c) use free of pesticides and insecticides when raised in culture.

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The seagrasses are perceived to be hardier and thus more sustainable than algae. The hydroponics tanks is a "swing-away" holding reef configuration, with transparent netting, flocculated with soluble, organic N-P-K from composted marine harvested seaweed and is recirculatable in a closed system and cleaned between harvest. Harvesting of the seagrasses and processing of biomaterials (e. g. refining of biofuels) and separation of feed residues as high quality feedstock for dairy goats and cattle is downstream.

The sugarcane industry in our ​island region of

N​egros has been given a jumpstart in producing a bioethanol plant utilizing FCR bagasse feedstock    and now glucose syrup and as coverted via enzyme technology to hi-fructose syrup as sweetener for all us health foodies.  The potential is there also to produce sugar to lactic acid and then polymerize to polylactic acid (​PLA) (applications- fast food containers, waste containers, etc.) as bio-renewable materials that will help catapult diversification in the Negros island region from hydrobiotic marine grass cultivation of low ligneous feedstock requiring less enzymes and other inputs including energy and cost of operations in the process.

Suberins as starting material in cut rhizomes and off-shoots in seagrasses consist of polyaliphatics (bionol) residing in the cell membrane and cell wall while the polyaromatics reside in the cell wall alone where the tissues are ruptured and homogenized in a mouton grinder press and the homogenate under  high pressure and temperature with glycerol pressure filtered in a glass sintered funnel thick to several inches and reinforced to the perimeter; the solvent phase is separated out in olefin and aliphatic and aromatic fractions separated by distillation and reduced with reducing agent Bu3SnH; the aliphatics are then cracked either: 1) thermally without catalyst under high Temp./pressure or 2) at lower Temp./pressure with catalyst into smaller molecules with zeolites or aluminosilicates to produce kerosene- a mixture of C6-C16 molecules.

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Dairy feeding requires high quality forages such as from seagrasses which have been fed from gathered areas in coastal beaches in the southern Indian subcontinent for generations. Pelleted concentrate can be fed in addition to ad lib feeding of forage composed of binder, copra meal:ground yellow corn (30:70) , rice bran, crushed oyster shell and salt.

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In fact, it is believed that energy will surmount any ff. attempts to produce feed after earlier uses of pharma in the Philippine Islands. SSF pre-treatments would be ideal for low-lignin marine seagrasses including axenic applications of PNA-B12 enhancements for energy biofuel generation.