Great advances on the Nearshore site in Kiel Bay!
The recently deployed, modular and scalable nearshore system has proven suitable for the cultivation of the brown algae macroalgae, Saccharina, commonly known as “sugar kelp”.
This milestone was possible, thanks to an ongoing cooperation, between the Research and Development Centre Kiel GmbH and pupils from the local school, the “Lernwerft – Club of Rome” school (see previous post). The pupils were actively involved in all steps, from experimental planning, the execution (seeding, deployment), as well as, the monitoring of the macroalgae (Figure 1, upper row). With the help of the pupils, valuable growth data of the brown algae were measured, implying solid growth already (Figure 1, lower row).
Figure 1: Upper row; collection and preparation of the cultivation work in cooperation with the Research and Development Centre Kiel GmbH and pupils from the local school, the “Lernwerft – Club of Rome” school. Lower row, left image; Saccharina growth from the nearshore site. Right image; a pupil supporting the measurements for accurate analysis.
Furthermore, to standardise data generation and provide novel insights, the
in-house developed, image-based analysis pipeline “PHIAMPP” is being deployed to automatically measure various parameters (blade area, length, width, colour etc.), relevant for science and industry applications (see last post). The novel setup´s data compare well with manually taken measurements, implying its applicability. While the baseline of the novel setup is already functional, more sophisticated data analysis will be needed for further refinement and increasing automatization, of more advanced growth parameters. This will provide valuable insights for various fields of research and industry, including biomass management.
Figure 2: A novel, in-house developed workflow is being further refined and applied on the ULTFARMS harvests. digital analysis pipeline to automatically quantify; blade area, length, width, as well as, colour of the algae, for increased data generation and insights into growth.
