My dam has red azolla (azolla filiculoides) which is a native floating
aquatic fern. I would like to harvest it to use it as a mulch and to add to
compost. I imagine there are several tons of the stuff. The question is how
to gather it. A net scoop would work around the edges but this sounds
rather energetic to me, one could end up with a bad case of gorilla arms and
get very wet. Other ideas are to use a net on floats and pull the net
across the dam or to pump it through a mesh of some kind and allow the water
to run back into the dam.

Google tells me that azolla is used in the way I want to but so far nothing
about how to gather it.

Before I re-invent the wheel has anybody tried this or heard of it being
done? By what method?

David