Transcript:

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“I am gonna spend the next while collecting as many of these fertile plants as I can.”

For centuries, people who live on the coastal areas of Ireland have gathered seaweed as a source of food, medicine and a fertilizer. Now scientists, with the support of the Irish government, are searching for ways to harvest and make use of this natural resource. Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse into the world of science from the inside.

“Okay, at the moment I have a knife and a net bag in my hand. And I cut the fertile blades just above the fertile patches to leave as much of the adult plant behind as possible. And I have a net bag just to collect my samples.”

Declan Hanniffy is studying at the Irish Seaweed Center at the University of Galway. He’s gathering samples of kelp, a kind of seaweed, and trying to develop a unique method of cultivating it.

ambience: water splashing, collecting seaweed

“We want to be able to have a method to grow these from seeds to adult plants throughout the year independent of weather and sea conditions and we can perform it in a lab. And so it is seaweed farming, growing a crop from seed to final product.”

“If this is successful, it will mean that we will have an available crop throughout the year for potential markets. And we will have a ready supply to meet their demands.”

“Okay, I just walk out, find an adult plant and follow along the blades until I find an area of dark patches on it.”

The dark patches are the kelp’s spores, the seeds that Declan will be using to grow new plants. We’ll hear about the unusual way he’ll be cultivating those plants in our next program.

Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.
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