The local aquaculture industry is hoping to turn waste nutrients from net-pen fish farms into a lucrative chunk of the $10-billion kelp industry.
Researchers from North Island College are installing lines seeded with baby kelp at 30 B.C. fish farms as part of a five-year, $1-million pilot project to test the viability of seaweed aquaculture on our coast.
Preliminary trials conducted by project manager Naomi Tabata and Stephen Cross, NIC’s Industrial Research Chair for Sustainable Aquaculture, showed strong potential for a commercial seaweed industry.
“This year, the study is much more extensive, with test lines going in near Tahsis, Baynes Sound, Tofino, Port Hardy and Kyuquot,” said Tabata.
Lengths of rope in the test sites will be wound with twine seeded with tiny kelp plants, a local variety called Saccharina latissima, or sugar kelp. It is used in Asian cuisine to make broth, eaten as a vegetable and processed for use as an industrial thickening agent for ice cream and toothpaste, according to Cross. Sugars from Saccharina latissima can also be used to make ethanol biofuel.
Randy Shore – Vancouver Sun – February 4, 2016.
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