Researchers give Yellow River Delta's sea grass beds in Shandong a helping hand

JINAN — The receding tide at the mouth of the Yellow River in Dongying, Shandong province, one late-September morning revealed a vast sea grass bed.

Dozens of workers walked back and forth along the shore in the city's Kenli district, gathering Japanese eelgrass seeds to be sown next spring. The seeds, about the size of sesame seeds, were not fully mature, and the workers put them in mesh bags and soaked them in water to allow the eelgrass to continue growing.

"Sea grass seeds are too light and will be easily washed away by the waves when they are fully mature, so collecting them around the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival is the best strategy," said Zhou Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oceanology.