SPONSORED CONTENT – Captain Carp Nutrients is an Illinois-based company excited to announce their breakthrough Asian carp-based fertilizer. This revolutionary product is getting ready to hit market across the US and Canada.
“We are not making a traditional product,” Mike Owsley, founder of Captain Carp, told Cannabis Culture in an interview this week. “We are creating world solutions.”
Having grown up doing commercial fishing in the Mississippi River, Owsley was no stranger to the industry. He took a special interest in carp early on, selling food-grade fish for lobster bait.
Founder Mike Owsley with two massive invasive Asian Carp sourced from the local Illinois River Valley
When COVID hit and restaurants began to close Owsley found himself in trouble financially.
Instead of giving up, he remembered watching his stepfather as a child. “He used to take whole fish and bury it in the garden and then grow tomatoes and cannabis,” Owsley told Cannabis Culture. This gave birth to the idea of creating a fertilizer, but unlike the traditional fish products on the market, “I wanted to try fertilizer unlike everybody else, and this is where I took a real gamble.”
The focus turned to Asian Carp, a highly invasive species brought over from China in the 1970s. By using a fish not suitable for consumption, the entire fish could be used, not just the bones and scraps.
Owsley then purchased a liquid cremation machine, which completely emulsified the fish into pure liquid. He stated, “It is like the consistency of milk, which was unheard of for fish emulsion. Others are very sludgy and like pudding.”
This unique viscosity allows farmers to use Captain Carp in their existing machinery without fear of clogging or equipment breakdown.
“It worked great the more we tested it. The organic chemical I use can break cold fish down in 8 hours,” as opposed to the nearly 2 weeks it takes other companies to process their fish matter.
The organic chemical process also naturally extracts humic acid, found in the digesting algae inside the stomach of the carp. Other fertilizer producers must purchase their fish and humic acid separately, so Captain Carp’s 2-in-1 product is unlike anything on the market currently.
“What we have done is created solutions, the biggest one being finding an eco-friendly raw material for humic acid that can rebuild organic matter in soil,” Owsley continued.
Alex Skladaniwski of Apis Domum Farm spoke of being the first to test out Captain Carp. Working with hemp and hay in the Colorado desert, Skladaniwski stated, “We are trying to revive this piece of land because it’s really dry and salty here, so the fish fertilizer has been really great helping anything grow.”
To spread the word of their success, the farm has been delivering samples to other local growers. Skladaniwski has taken small orders to a nearby acreage where land is parceled to different kinds of pot growers. “Some of them are just doing indoor stuff, just hydros, and some of them have green houses, and some of them have just outdoor stuff they are trying to grow in the ground.”
“So far they love it there. People are saying that it’s just making their plants perk right up.”
“Captain Carp is a really good organic product that is helping the world in terms of getting the invasive carp out and putting something good back into the ground.”
With Asian carp comprising of 90% of the biomass in the Illinois River Valley, eating nearly 50% of their own body weight daily, and reproducing 3-5 times a year, this invasive species is not going anywhere any time soon. This means that Captain Carp has a virtually endless supply of sustainable product they can source from local fisherman to make their organically processed and environmentally friendly fertilizer. With their substantially lower price point and ability to smoothly integrate into existing agricultural processes, Captain Carp seems to be a solid investment for everyone from home growers to large-scale farming compounds.
Captain Carp hopes to be in market soon, with a new website soon to launch and plans to sell via Amazon. They can also be found on Facebook, Instagram at @captain_carp_nutrients and via email at [email protected]
