Farm Design

[niall_oc6340]

Hi everyone,

I'm an aspiring ocean farmer in Ireland.
I've been using the Farm Design tool to get a sense for what the costs and yields would be for a standard 10-acre 5-line site.
I think I must be making mistakes but the numbers I find for yields only show yields for sugar kelp.
Is there a way to get a sense for what kinds of yields to expect (order of magnitude) for not only sugar kelp but also the other produce i.e. oysters, clams, mussels?
I'd like to have a ballpark sense for total yield in a 10-acre site so I can then check local prices to help put together a business plan.

Thanks in advance and take care out there,
Niall

[philip_madden]

@niall_oc6340 There's a lot contingent on that like species, harvest rate, etc. Kelp is easier to guesstimate since it's an autotroph but your growth rates for shellfish depend on the productivity of the plankton in your site which is quite variable by region. You might consider searching for studies that give some information. Best of luck!

[kendall_barbery]

@niall_oc6340 Hi, Niall, The current version of the Farm Design Tool is laser focused on sugar kelp (and applicable to species with similar morphologies, like Alaria). It's a pretty complicated back-end model, so we wanted to streamline the tool as much as possible to start. It's helpful to hear feedback that you are interested in being able to generate designs and budgets for more diverse farm systems.
@david_bailey and @jwhis flagging for future work on the tool.