Shallow Water Farming: A Low-Cost Innovation

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One problem that I faced was where my oyster farm was,

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and a lot of other oyster farms are on Long

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Island or in shallow water.

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And the standard practice is

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to grow kelp along suspended lines in deeper water.

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Uh, but the logic being

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that the kelp does not touch the bottom.

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So that really wouldn't work in these

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shallow water environments.

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And as a scientist here at Stony Brook University,

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a few years ago with my, uh, colleague Chris Goler,

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we had written a proposal to look at just that,

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can we grow kelp in shallow water environments?

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And the shorter answer is yes.

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So in addition to achieving very good growth, there's, uh,

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several benefits to this shallow water system.

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Probably one of the biggest benefits is it's very

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inexpensive to set up.

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We can set up a hundred foot line, um,

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using just two screw down anchors

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and, uh, you know, a hundred feet of rope between them.

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The total cost for the setup is about $50.

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It's really a fraction of what it costs to set up a, uh,

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deeper water setup with a suspended line system

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where you have to buy bigger anchors.

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Um, sometimes chain to go from the anchors and buoys.

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Um, another great advantage

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of the Shallow West system is you don't have

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to use any buoys, okay?

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The lines are just pulled tight so they're tart, um,

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don't need buoys to help suspend the line.

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And, um, so not, not only does that reduce costs,

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but it also reduces, um,

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what some people might consider eye pollution.

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Some people might not wanna see buoys at the surface.

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So it really gives a very, you know, very low impact.

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We set up a very, very simple system, uh, on the farm.

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Just put two screw anchors in the farm, uh, with the heads

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of the screw anchors sticking about a foot

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up above the substrate.

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We ran a three eight inch poly line, uh, deployed the kelp,

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and lo and behold, it grew like wildfire.

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Another advantage is just the ease of setup.

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It's very, very, very easy to set up.

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I mean, you could set up a hundred foot line in

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15 minutes, 20 minutes.

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It's just very, very simple.

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Um, you don't have to deal with the weather.

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Uh, I mean, you do have, you have to deal with the weather,

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but weather isn't as much of a problem

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because you don't necessarily have

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to work from a boat in these shallow water environments.

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You put a pair of waiters on and you jump in the water.

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So if it's, you know, blowing too hard for a boat,

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you can still go do your work.

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So a lot of advantages of these shallow water systems,

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I think it actually outperformed many, uh,

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traditional deep water farms.

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And it was just a, it was a phenomenal experience

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to see this marine organism that, you know, started out

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as I say, like mere millimeters with almost

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no capital investment.

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The final thing I'll say is that in a lot

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of these shallow water environments, that's where some

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of the biggest water quality issues are.

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So that's where you have some of your biggest nitrogen

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loads, um, runoff in these shallow bays.

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So being able to grow sugar kelp

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and other seaweeds in these shallow environments has a,

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a great environmental value.

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So, um, yeah, a lot of advantages

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and benefits of growing kelp in, in shallow water.