Good Stuff

KAT DUGGAN

AFTER SPENDING a lifetime on the sea, Mick Norton says he struck ‘brown gold’ when he realised the impact seaweed could have on Marlborough grapevines.

With Māori tipuna dating back to the first canoes, Tākitimu and Tokomaru, Mick’s first European ancestor arrived at Te Awaiti in Tory Channel, Kura te Au, in 1831. They were the first of many generations of Norton whalers to hunt the seas of both Tory Channel and Cook Strait for whales. Mick’s father, Tom Norton, became a harpooner at the age of 12, while two of Mick’s elder brothers were among the last of the whalers in New Zealand waters.

But, despite growing up with a front row seat to the industry, whaling wasn’t for Mick. Since leaving school in 1953, aged 14, he has worn many hats, the first of which saw him working Tory Channel and Cook Strait as a fisherman, then paua diver. For many years he has come and gone from the water.

Doing what it took to feed his family of eight children, he also spent time as an insurance broker and a builder, then establishing Aquanort Pools in 1964. He even had a stint as the owner-operator of a fish and chip shop, Captain Delicious in Blenheim. But “the Tory” kept calling, and in 1977, Mick applied for a marine farm licence at Hitaua Bay, to farm paua, paua pearls, kina, and mussels, which are still part of the farm today. However, it was an unexpected species that led Mick to strike his “brown gold”.

Mick’s first three mussel lines were established in 1987, and it wasn’t long before he and his wife Mary were spending their days cutting away the seaweed that was persistently “attacking” the farm. “Firstly, we tried to eliminate it by cutting it off, and then something sparked in my mind about seaweed and what we might be able to do with it,” Mick says.

The couple began supplying a Dunedin fish fertiliser company with the seaweed. “They were making a fertiliser with fish and seaweed and we thought we’d hit the jackpot, but the company went bankrupt, and the market disappeared,” he recalls.

But Mick wasn’t about to give up. “We parked the seaweed in the short term for the lack of a market, but around 1990 it appeared in my vision again and I developed some prototype seaweed products.” While he experimented with kelp powder, kelp pasta, kelp chips and even kelp fruit leather, Mick developed an extract containing fucoidan, a component of some brown kelps which is now known for its benefits to the immune system.

He discovered a way to extract kelp juice using a cold, wet process, preserving the goodness of the seaweed and making it an ideal base for many products. It was about this time that Marlborough’s grape industry began to boom, a happy coincidence that led to the birth of yet another idea. “I started making a foliar spray and around 2006 it turned into a commercial operation, which was certified organic by BioGro, and I continued to develop my methods,” Mick says.

In 2013, Tory Channel Kelp Products changed its organic certification to AsureQuality, where the certification remains today. The foliar spray, Natural Kelp Tea, is made using a cold ferment process and contains Macrocystis pyrifera, or giant kelp, and very little else. “It’s a liquid plant food and soil conditioner, and because it’s made using a cold process, we lose very little of the nutrients, vitamins and amino acids that are found in seaweed, so it’s highly nutritious for plants and soils,” Mick says. Now, his deliveries reach vineyards, dairy farms, gardens and orchards across Marlborough and the top of the South, and have even gone as far afield as Central Otago.

Cloudy Bay vineyard operations manager John Flanagan says he and his team are firm believers in the use of seaweed applications to promote plant health and to build resilience against weather extremes in the vineyard.

“We’ve been using Tory Channel Natural Kelp for the past seven years and are pleased with how our vines have performed over this time. It’s become an integral part of our vine nutrition programme,” he says. “We’re also very conscious about our environmental impact, and we’re delighted that we can source a local Marlborough product, and we know exactly what has gone into its production.”

In recent years, Mick added a tanker to operations at Tory Channel Kelp Products, something which enabled him to begin delivering Natural Kelp Tea on demand in any quantity up to 2,000 litres at a time. This move not only added convenience for clients, but also reduced the need for plastic waste, says John. “Mick is great to deal with, and his bulk deliveries directly to our vineyards eliminates the need for lots of plastic containers.” Kat Duggan is Mick Norton’s granddaughter