Learnings from this course applicable at the West Coast of Sweden?
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Hi everyone
I am based at the westcoast of Sweden (Swedish-Norwegian Border) and I stumbled over the 60 degrees Fahrenheit water temperature mentioned during the introduction with regard to applicability of the learnings here.
Is that an average value or does it mean that it should be never above 60 degrees? The water here is below that most of the year but not all the time. There is a seaweed farm just around the corner (Nordic Seafarm). How do you understand this?
Thanks in advance for your help! What a wonderful platform I have found here :-)
Greetings from Sweden
Matthes
@matthes_sierk5876 Good day. From my perspective, 60 degrees is a generalized guideline...closer to a high average threshold. Wild populations will experience higher temperatures and survive but it is not ideal, they begin to lose biomass via cellular stress (from lack of nitrogen and temperature) and erosion. The concentration of nutrients in the water often is highly correlated with temperature. In my experience, kelp growth reduces before temperature gets high because phytoplankton have removed the bulk nutrients from the seawater by late spring or early summer, and kelp that experiences higher water flow will be healthier for longer than kelp in low water flow. A lot of factors to consider and the species grown also matters (e.g. Saccharina needs less nitrogen per unit biomass than Alaria, on average).