SAMS scientists make major breakthrough in growing of rare seaweed

"The growth is phenomenal," said Dr De Boever. "We’re growing the seaweed from the spore stage to germlings, which increases resilience, compared with vegetatively cut thalli from established adult seaweeds.

"The spore to germling mortality rate is usually high but in the lab we have more control over that crucial life stage."

The demand for red seaweed is increasing but this industry primarily relies on a few seaweed species, mainly cultivated in Asian countries, that are facing threats from climate change and increasing incidences of diseases.

The combination of improved hatchery methods and tank-based cultivation has given the research team greater control over the environment, compared with open-sea farming, and a more healthy and pristine biomass with low iodine and metal accumulation. The tank-based method also allows for growing Palmaria palmata all year round.

Dr Puja Kumari, who heads up the FABRICS cultivation project at SAMS, said: "When discussing seaweed cultivation, a lot of focus is often on large kelps that generate lots of biomass, but more research effort is required to help expand and diversify the cultivation of red seaweeds in the region.

"Red seaweed cultivation is important for the seaweed aquaculture industry because it contributes to half the net worth of world seaweed production.

"There is therefore an urgent need to diversify seaweed cultivation practices to include important UK and European red seaweeds to help address the uncertainty in the red seaweed global market supply, as well as address sustainability and net zero targets."

The FABRICS project, funded by UKRI-BBSRC, also involves commercial partners W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. in the USA and SeaDyes, a start-up based at The James Hutton Institute in Scotland that creates natural dyes from seaweed for the fashion and textile industries.

"Through our involvement in the FABRICS project, SeaDyes is working to establish a scalable and resilient supply of red seaweed biomass to underpin our sustainable dye technologies,” said Jessica Giannotti, founder and CEO of SeaDyes. "By addressing critical bottlenecks and supporting the expansion of red seaweed cultivation in Scotland, FABRICS strengthens domestic supply chains, reduces risk, and helps complete the seaweed-based value chain for downstream innovators.

"As a future off-taker of large quantities of biomass, our role in the project is to validate land-based cultivated biomass for biotechnology applications, ensuring it meets the quality, performance and scalability requirements of our bio-based dye platform."