Courses / Harvest

Course Content

Preparing for Harvest
Start Planning Early Food Safety Regulations Water and Tissue Testing Choose & Order Harvest Containers
Timing Your Harvest
Consider Multiple Harvests Biofouling Weather and Tide
Boat Setup
Configure Your Boat for Harvest
Take a Visual Tour of Different Harvest Configurations
Harvesting Techniques
Maintain Quality, Maximize Efficiency Keep Good Records
Post-Harvest Handling
Quality, food safety, and shelf life Quality Control
Buyer Handoff
Delivery
Resources & Tools
Farm Operations Forum
Guide to Common Biofouling Organisms for Ocean Farmers
Download file
Harvest Tracking Farm Map
Download file
Lesson 3 Boat Setup

Back to: Harvest

Take a Visual Tour of Different Harvest Configurations

These images and videos depict different harvesting strategies used by farmers across the US. Again, there is no “right way” to harvest. Choose a system that works for your boat, your farm, and your market. 

Different Harvest Configurations
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In this configuration, the boat is positioned parallel to the growline, and the growline is still connected to the anchor system of the array. The farmer works his way down the line, and cuts the kelp off the growline over the side rail of the boat as he goes. When he’s finished, the empty line is retrieved from the array and the holdfasts are stripped off.
Cathering Puckett (1)
In this setup, the farmer has devised a pair of A-frame supports on either end of the boat. The kelp is cut from the growline and placed in baskets as the boat moves down the line.
115-Great Gun Shellfish
This image shows a shallow-water kelp farm on Long Island, New York. Here, the farmers harvest by foot wearing chest waders and placing the kelp in baskets suspended by an innertube.
Seagrove case study
Sometimes it’s helpful to use both a skiff and a larger boat to harvest. The skiff can maneuver around the farm to detach growlines from the array system, while the larger boat uses hydraulic power and overhead pick points to pull the kelp line aboard. This photo shows a harvesting setup used by Seagrove Kelp Co. in Southeast Alaska.

The harvesting setup in the video below was designed by farmers Alf Pryor and Nick Mangini in Kodiak, Alaska. In this configuration, the growline is routed over the bow of the skiff and passes through two blocks and a scraper hung from overhead bracing, which helps to remove the holdfasts from the growline. As the kelp passes overhead, it is cut into brailer bags on the deck of the boat. When the brailer bags are full, they’re covered and tipped off the deck into the water, where they float behind the skiff while the boat continues down the line. This system allows the farmer to harvest approximately 3,000lbs of kelp an hour. Read more details about this harvest system, including dockside delivery, in this Holdfast Blog Post.

GreenWave Tip

Are you a farmer who has devised a different harvesting system you’d like to share? Post a picture to the Farm Operations topic in the Community!

Video

Harvest design by Alf Pryor, Alaska Ocean Farms.