For more than a century, pesticide applicators have mixed adjuvants into their herbicide spray tanks in order to facilitate or modify the action of the applied chemical, and make the herbicide application more effective. Like the water that is mixed with most aquatic herbicides, these commercial additives are combined with the herbicide in small quantities, causing it to spray with less drift, stick better to leaves, spread more evenly over the plant, and so on. The earliest adjuvants were made from whale oils that were meant to enable a chemical to stick to the targeted species. In the mid-twentieth century, soaps and detergents were popular adjuvants. Research in the 1950s led to the development of more sophisticated adjuvants.

Algae are in the plant kingdom, but technically they are not plants. A diverse group of organisms, algae survive in even the harshest habitats. From the dry desert, to the Arctic Circle, to boiling springs, these organisms have found a way to extract enough from their environment to live. Algae range in size from microscopic to meters long and from single-celled to complex organisms that rival large plants. These organisms may look like true plants, but unlike plants, algae do not have roots or true stems and leaves. In Florida's freshwaters, algae are what make the water green.

Green water is not necessarily undesirable, and neither are algae. In fact, algae are essential to the ecosystem and to life as we know it. Algae are a primary component of the food web, providing food for all types of animals, including fish, insects, mollusks, zooplankton (microscopic animals), and humans. There are microscopic algae, like phytoplankton; and there are macroalgae, visible to the naked eye. Algae occur naturally in all types of systems and can indicate the condition of an ecosystem. The mere presence of a species can indicate the amount and type of nutrients present.