Sustainable Utilization of Agricultural Straw for Harmful Algal Blooms Control: A Review

The use of agricultural straw for algal bloom control has been studied for more than 30 years. In this article, we have reviewed the promising potentials of using agricultural straw as source of anti-algal agents, including the effectiveness of each major straw type so far used in this regard, and the investigated algal species. Various pre-treatment methods have also been widely reviewed. Significant progress has been made in natural product chemistry and molecular biology with regards to agricultural straw, especially in relation to the extraction of antialgal allelochemicals, degradation processes of agricultural straws and the mechanisms through which these inhibitions occur. The development of biotechnologies using agricultural straw to successfully inhibit growth of bloom forming algae has been generally accepted as environmentally friendly. The current research status and that of the future should include isolation and discovery of antialgal allelochemicals, development of models that would illustrate the sequence of physiologic events that match the species-specific inhibitor phenomenon, and products fit in the field applications.