Week 3: How to Start a Kelp Farm: Guided Course & Community
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Join this discussion if you are part of the How to Start a Kelp Farm Guided Course and Community. (To learn with us, register here.)
After playing around in Farm Design Tool, we’d love to know how your gear selection and farm designs are progressing:- Which array type(s) did you choose? Why? What questions do you still have about farm design?
Feel free to share any other thoughts about this week’s course. (See the full course program.)
Be in touch!
-Lindsay
@lindsay_olsen
Couldn't figure out how to answer questions or ask questions.
Ill figure it out next time. Awesome information thank you.
Is there any plans to do off shore farming or restoration here in the North coast?.
Has there been anything done since this article to l make it easier for the permitting process ? or does this even apply to kelp farming?
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/leadership-message/president-signs-new-executive-order-promoting-american-seafood-competitiveness-and
@marcus_hernandez
Somethings have not been covered in the chats and such, like the "why", about things. There are 3 oceanic zones that go with every country that touched the ocean. The first is 12 nautical miles from the low tide shore line known as the territorial sea. This area is usually governed by the state and leases for farming is granted by the state. The next 12 nautical miles, 24 NM from the shore line is called the continuous zone. It claimed by the federal government in the US. Some countries don't have this area. To operate anything in this area, comes under to jurisdiction of the Feds.
The EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) is out to 200 NM from the shoreline and it comes in two parts. Anything floating is considered to be outside government authority, while the government claims all mineral rights. This means that you can not mine the sea floor for gold or rear earth minerals, but you can filter the water for them. Actually some minerals are so expensive, it does pay to filter for them. You can anchor to the sea bottom so you can farm anyplace outside the 24 NM continuous zone without any permits or regulations but, I would not trust any big government. Small ones are easier to work with. There are sea mounts all over the planet, some tops are just a couple of meters below the surface. Farming these areas would not come under anyone's jurisdiction at this time but the World government is trying to change that and make every place under their jurisdiction.
If you like the idea of floating oceanic farms, I would like to offer you my booklet, its free, just go to marinea.org and look around, you'll find it. Good luck..
@marcus_hernandez
Marcus, at the present time, there does not seem to be any compelling reasons to venture outside of state waters which in most states, stops at 3 miles. Contact the department in your state that is responsible for aquaculture permitting. In California where you are, its the Fish and Game Commission, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, so check out: https://wildlife.ca.gov/Aquaculture
@marcus_hernandez Hi Marcus! Nice to hear from you. I think you might find this community post on the state of permitting in California useful.
@lindsay_olsen Hello: Enjoyed today's session. I chose the single array as I am quite the 'green' entry into this area of farming. As mentioned in the introductions for us, it is not feasible for me to ocean farm but I am interested in doing inland or tank hobby farming for now. Most recently I found the following feature/website/presentation about dulse farming in tanks (but close to the shore/coast) in Oregon: https://media.oregonstate.edu/media/t/1_lgesc5fn.
It was very insightful. As far as design question(s), right now I am info gathering, absorbing, processing, and simply navigating how I might fit into the regenerative ocean farming picture...namely sea plants/seaweed/kelp/etc...
There was one question in the chat that caught my eye and it was about seaweed as a replacement for or complementary process for plastic manufacturing. I previously mentioned I was interested in the concepts and readings I have seen for using seaweed for livestock feed/nutrition. I am still very focused on that as well as that would be something I could look at as a post-farming business inquiry on my part to help integrate sea plants and/or kelp into the North Texas market for livestock feed and fodder.
Although I will not end up pursuing the type of seaweed ocean farming focused on in this course, it is helping me tremendously in generating ideas for alternative/sustainable ways to integrate kelp into everyday existence. The science behind the farm design is quite fascinating and I am really enjoying understanding the gear, technology, and tools needed for doing this. Look forward to next week's lesson.
@patricia_nolan check out what Symbrosia are doing SeaGraze
— Symbrosia are doing. From what you say it may be of interest.
Hi @patricia_nolan - seaweed is very promising for use in livestock supplementation and bioplastics or other materials. Most of the efforts are early stage, however there is a long history of utilizing seaweed for livestock feed. Methane reduction is an increasingly prevalent benefit being discussed. Recent studies, such as this one from UC Davis, validate the impact on methane reduction from red seaweed supplementation.
There is also increasing interest in utilizing seaweed for bioplastics as mentioned. You might be interested in this list of companies working on seaweed packaging. If you have any specific questions about either market application, don't hesitate to ask!
@lindsay_olsen
Is there any disadvantage to the grow lines being close together for the catenary module? I'm thinking in terms of possible crowding, would there be a decrease in yield or quality? Or is this not an issue for kelp?
@morgan_anthony62
Morgan, at the Kodiak farm we have gone to great length to try and answer that question and so far have not seen any reduction in per-meter growth from too-close line spacing. We theorized that because of high farm density that there would be a reduction in flow, a reduction in available nutrients, or a loss of sunlight, particularly at such high latitude. I further suspected that some occasions of neighboring lines touching each other might be cause for losses. We've seen nothing.
While there is variability in sugar kelp growth per meter for various reasons, line spacing does not seem to be one, and we've tried spacing from 2.5' to 10'. The crop quality was similarly unaffected. I suspect there ultimately would be a limit, but we have not yet had reason to push things closer to find out.
It is interesting to note that in similar experiments with bull kelp in Humboldt Bay, CA, per-meter production was less for 5-line arrays compared to a single line. It turned out there was a lot of tangling of the plants with the close growlines held at a constant depth throughout the growing season and that might explain the different outcome. Regardless, for a give area of ocean, even in this case the multi-line system still outperformed the single line by a lot.
@morgan_anthony62 One caveat to Cliff's post above is that the Kodiak farm site is in a very high-flow, high-nutrient region. I have heard of some farmers at other sites experiencing some nutrient limitation with multi-line systems at the inner most lines. But as Cliff said, it tends to be very minimal compared to the advantage of multi-line cultivation.
@marcus_hernandez
Somethings have not been covered in the chats and such, like the "why", about things. There are 3 oceanic zones that go with every country that touched the ocean. The first is 12 nautical miles from the low tide shore line known as the territorial sea. This area is usually governed by the state and leases for farming is granted by the state. The next 12 nautical miles, 24 NM from the shore line is called the continuous zone. It claimed by the federal government in the US. Some countries don't have this area. To operate anything in this area, comes under to jurisdiction of the Feds.
The EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) is out to 200 NM from the shoreline and it comes in two parts. Anything floating is considered to be outside government authority, while the government claims all mineral rights. This means that you can not mine the sea floor for gold or rear earth minerals, but you can filter the water for them. Actually some minerals are so expensive, it does pay to filter for them. You can anchor to the sea bottom so you can farm anyplace outside the 24 NM continuous zone without any permits or regulations but, I would not trust any big government. Small ones are easier to work with. There are sea mounts all over the planet, some tops are just a couple of meters below the surface. Farming these areas would not come under anyone's jurisdiction at this time but the World government is trying to change that and make every place under their jurisdiction.
If you like the idea of floating oceanic farms, I would like to offer you my booklet, its free, just go to marinea.org and look around, you'll find it. Good luck..
@morgan_anthony62
Morgan, at the Kodiak farm we have gone to great length to try and answer that question and so far have not seen any reduction in per-meter growth from too-close line spacing. We theorized that because of high farm density that there would be a reduction in flow, a reduction in available nutrients, or a loss of sunlight, particularly at such high latitude. I further suspected that some occasions of neighboring lines touching each other might be cause for losses. We've seen nothing.
While there is variability in sugar kelp growth per meter for various reasons, line spacing does not seem to be one, and we've tried spacing from 2.5' to 10'. The crop quality was similarly unaffected. I suspect there ultimately would be a limit, but we have not yet had reason to push things closer to find out.
It is interesting to note that in similar experiments with bull kelp in Humboldt Bay, CA, per-meter production was less for 5-line arrays compared to a single line. It turned out there was a lot of tangling of the plants with the close growlines held at a constant depth throughout the growing season and that might explain the different outcome. Regardless, for a give area of ocean, even in this case the multi-line system still outperformed the single line by a lot.
@marcus_hernandez
Marcus, at the present time, there does not seem to be any compelling reasons to venture outside of state waters which in most states, stops at 3 miles. Contact the department in your state that is responsible for aquaculture permitting. In California where you are, its the Fish and Game Commission, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, so check out: https://wildlife.ca.gov/Aquaculture
@lindsay_olsen I used the tool to configure a pair of single array lines. The idea was to keep it simple but to have a second array as a backup or control for a first-time, experimental project.
I also chose CT as the prospective lease site, since this seems to be path of least regulatory resistance, and closest to home in NJ. Peconic/Gardiners Bay would be a second choice, with protection from severe weather.
To get familiar with the tool I used all the default settings for many site parameters. I had used the CT mapping tool to see that most of the substrate right off the coast is sandy and fairly flat.
I really liked the tools at the end with the budget estimator, just to get a sense that this could be done for perhaps under $5K for a first season grow (with another $5K for all the ancillary expenses such as fuel, personal gear and other operational expense. The yield guesstimator was also useful and cool, even with all the caveats.
While we have touched on site selection and permitting in early sessions, I'm now trying to understand the real logistics of that process. If all the work was done to identify a specific site, or several options -- good proximity to marina, optimal current, depth, bottom, nutrients and all the rest -- does the next step just entail detailing those GPS coordinates in the application? What are the constraints on staking a claim to a particular lease site?
@jack_mason Great questions, Jack. I would start by contacting any neighboring lease holders around where you're looking to permit to get their take on the area, and what they know about those waters and the permitting process in your region. It's also often a good idea to set up a "pre-application" meeting with your state regulating officials, where you could share your intent, and get any feedback on further supporting documents, information, etc. that you might need to collect before submitting a formal application.
@patricia_nolan check out what Symbrosia are doing SeaGraze
— Symbrosia are doing. From what you say it may be of interest.
@morgan_anthony62 One caveat to Cliff's post above is that the Kodiak farm site is in a very high-flow, high-nutrient region. I have heard of some farmers at other sites experiencing some nutrient limitation with multi-line systems at the inner most lines. But as Cliff said, it tends to be very minimal compared to the advantage of multi-line cultivation.
@marcus_hernandez Hi Marcus! Nice to hear from you. I think you might find this community post on the state of permitting in California useful.
@jack_mason Great questions, Jack. I would start by contacting any neighboring lease holders around where you're looking to permit to get their take on the area, and what they know about those waters and the permitting process in your region. It's also often a good idea to set up a "pre-application" meeting with your state regulating officials, where you could share your intent, and get any feedback on further supporting documents, information, etc. that you might need to collect before submitting a formal application.
Hi @patricia_nolan - seaweed is very promising for use in livestock supplementation and bioplastics or other materials. Most of the efforts are early stage, however there is a long history of utilizing seaweed for livestock feed. Methane reduction is an increasingly prevalent benefit being discussed. Recent studies, such as this one from UC Davis, validate the impact on methane reduction from red seaweed supplementation.
There is also increasing interest in utilizing seaweed for bioplastics as mentioned. You might be interested in this list of companies working on seaweed packaging. If you have any specific questions about either market application, don't hesitate to ask!
@lindsay_olsen Thanks again for a valuable session. I appreciate all the time, effort and resources GreenWave has put into all the content delivered, and the Farm Design tool raises the game on open-source innovation - love it!
Having played with the tool a few times, I've found it most useful for helping develop an approximate site build budget for an initial set of test lines. However, following the webinar I've been delving deeper using the "plan a farm, plant a garden" idea, which has been very useful in helping develop approximate costs of scaling.
I found the webinar session especially useful in explaining the transition from single lines to 5-line and catenary arrays, what drives each array system and in which situations they'd be most practical.
Delving deeper, I found it useful to get more insights on anchor and line types - this will save me a hole heaping heck of a time in future! Cheers again! Kerr