Land plants at sea

PeterVon Bartheld said :

"Yesterday and today I've been surfing the net a bit looking for some of the plants I know from the Dutch shores. The two plants I've looked up seem to be most suitable; ZEEKRAAL (fr; Salicorne) and Crambe maritima (also called seakale).

ZEEKRAAL in dry sand


ZEEKRAAL in wet sand


ZEEKRAAL in your plate, Bon apetit!

Seakale receipe

They're tough plants and very nutricious. I'm especially interested in the possibilities of creating a system in which animals and plants are balancing each other out, like the Israeli farm you see in the PDF I send you with this email.

Every time I'm looking for this subject, I bump into a collaboration project between Holland, Belgium and Portugal in which different universities did research about growing crops in salty conditions. These guys are obviously the people to talk to. Some of them actually started up little businesses, specializing in salt water farming. See the links in the PDF (3.2 mb)."

AMAZING! So we dont have to eat each other out ! There will definitely be a part of the part 1 publication dedicated to cooking with yummy pictures and happy people

Peter von Bartheld said:

And ofcourse there is Nori (Porphyra) the most commenly know eatible seaweed.

What sort of nutritive value does nori have?

Porphyra contains significant amounts of protein, vitamins and minerals. The vitamin C content of nori, or prepared Porphyra, is greater than in raw oranges. The vitamin A content is comparable to that spinach, along with fairly high amounts of vitamin B in general. The amount of free and proteinaceous amino acids in nori are roughly similar to that of vegetables. Manganese, copper and selenium are present in Porphyra and essential for the metabolic processes of organisms. Porphyra has the remarkable capacity for survival against dessication and can dry out for days without harm. The primary storage form for Porphyra isby starch.

cultivation

The farming of nori occurs in two stages. The first stage is when the Conchocelis stage is cultivated along with the production of conchospores. The second stage is when the framer focus on the cultivation of the thallus in the field.

I guess the first stage might be some what complicated, it demands indoor cultivation of the spores, regulating light and temperature, and it is usually done in autumn. But if there is a company that provides the spores ready for growing the thallus (the actual seaweed) then these months would be perfect to experiement with the cultivation of it.

Cultivation of the thallus stage of Porphyra yezoensis

After the collecting of conchospores, these spores are now ready to be seeded and grown on cultivation nets in the field. There are three commonly used cultivation methods:

* The pillar method is only used for intertidal cultivation and in places where the tidal range is between one and two meters.

* The semi-floating raft method is used in the intertidal zone. This may be the preferred method as the raft floats near the surface of the water, allowing maximal exposure to the sunlight needed for photosynthesis.

* The floating raft method is used for production of Porphyra in deep water.

Would the raft-method not be perfect?