Cultivation of Palmaria palmata

: spore release, vegetative propagation and decontamination techniques.

Abstract

Palmaria palmata is an edible seaweed in high demand due to its many health benefits and uses in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Cultivation of P. palmata has been unsuccessful in the past due to poor spore survival, poor attachment to substrates, slow growth and degradation of biomass in tanks. This project aimed to find methods of growing P. palmata from spores and vegetatively for the development of a commercial crop. Initially, methods of spore release were trialled and spore survival was observed. Epiphytic growth was observed on spores for which a number of chemical treatments were then investigated. Vegetative propagation of meristematic tissue was also trialled alongside decontamination treatments. These experiments were subsequently up-scaled to flask culture and at-sea experiments. The main observation from the spore experiments was that an oomycete infection is highly prevalent and limits the production of this species. However, resistant spores were identified which have potential to be grown to adult sized plants to create a starting crop based around these strains. The growth of meristematic tissue was unsuccessful however, potassium iodide was identified as a potential decontamination treatment as it did not have a negative effect on the P. palmata tissue whereas sodium hypochlorite and methanol decreased the survival of the samples. In the flask cultures, Von Stosch media encouraged significantly enhanced vegetative growth compared to KTH media as did the use of potassium iodide and germanium dioxide in combination, compared to controls. A doubling in biomass of whole P. palmata fronds was achieved within four weeks. The at-sea investigation was ineffective due to the time of year as the biomass was heavily fouled with epiphytes. There is potential for this species to be grown commercially if further research takes place to overcome the persisting problems described in this thesis.

Date of Award	27 Apr 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of the Highlands and Islands
Supervisor	Michele Stanley (Supervisor) & Adrian Macleod (Supervisor)