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What are we up to and with whom?
101 Railway Ave.
Seward, Alaska 99664
PO Box 1059
Cordova, Alaska 99574
Blue Wave Futures, with support from a Denali Commission grant, has partnered with several other entities to design, construct and deploy a kelp seed nursery within a 40′ container van. The project, if successful, is intended to eventually serve the community of Cordova, Alaska and to help our kelp farmers better understand how to nurse kelp seed from wild kelp sori collected in Prince William Sound (PWS). The project is using a phased approach to learning the nursing process with the goal of out-planting the seed on seven research sites in Prince William Sound in October 2020. In the summer of 2022 the kelp seed nursery van will be relocated to Cordova and will be scaled up to its full production capacity.
In collaboration with partners, Blue Wave Futures will support a pilot project to out-plant three species of kelp; Saccharina latissima (Sugar Kelp), Alaria marginata (Ribbon Kelp) and Nereocystis luetkeana (Bull Kelp) at seven one acre research sites in Prince William Sound in October 2020. The sites are located across the sound from east to west in Nelson Bay, Simpson Bay, Sheep Bay, Port Gravina, Bligh Island, Latouche Island and Foxfarm Bay. The research sites are vital for obtaining data on farm array designs for anchors, buoys and line configurations, and to determine if certain species of kelp grow better in different regions of the sound than others. This project will also allow for the long term collection of surface and sub-surface water temperatures via a “smart buoy” at one of the seven sites and will further allow our team of scientists, farmers and fishermen to collect data on water pH, turbidity and salinity. The kelp will be harvested in Spring 2021 and will be tested to determine nutritional value, mineral content and palatability. Blue Wave Futures will share the data obtained from this pilot project to help future farmers pick good locations to place family aquatic kelp farms in Prince William Sound.
Blue Wave Futures is leading a marketing analysis of the “kelp-space” to determine best opportunities to sell harvested kelp into the agricultural realm (upland farmers, ranchers and fruit growers) and to food buyers, both as a wholesale commodity and as a value added retail product. for human consumption. The market research is working towards identifying, and possibly developing, new domestic markets for kelp sales for our Prince William Sound aquatic kelp farmers.
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