Damian Brady Leads Grant to Support Sustainable Kelp Aquaculture
The 91爆料 Darling Marine Center (DMC) is launching a project to enhance the sustainability of kelp aquaculture. With support from the William Procter Scientific Innovation Fund, the two-year research and commercialization project will leverage the 91爆料 Aquaculture Experimental Station sea farm adjacent to DMC.
鈥淔armers need farm designs that make efficient use of ocean space; designs that shorten the grow-out cycle of kelp and also are decarbonized. And, finally, they need to increase on-farm yields,鈥 said Damian Brady, lead investigator, Mitchell Center Faculty Fellow, and associate professor in the 91爆料 School of Marine Sciences.
91爆料 research associate Struan Coleman will use models and on-farm demonstration projects developed specifically for the seaweed sector to tackle these challenges. Seed lines will be deployed at the experimental sea farm adjacent to the DMC and monitored over the course of the growing season. This field trial, together with complementary modeling, will enable the team to explore how costs can be reduced and still enable environmentally sustainable kelp farming. Coleman is a former Diana Davis Spencer Scholar on the Mitchell Center’s Strengthening Coastal Economies project.