When Michael Doall was a teenager, he hated seaweed. And so did everyone else who knows about Long Island. Stroking your feet on the beach, getting your hooks dirty, and getting entangled in the propellers of your boat was a nuisance. Later, as a marine scientist and oyster farmer, he developed a love for one of the most useful seaweeds, the disappearing native species, sugar kelp. Now he is on a mission to return it to the New York Sea.
He grew up on the South Shore of Long Island with his mother, who thought it was a good excuse to take a beautiful day to the beach instead of school. He helped his family in the ambitious kitchen garden of Masapequa Park and became a shellfish expert at Stony Brook University’s Faculty of Marine Atmospheric Sciences after earning a master’s degree in marine environmental science.
From there, his passion led him to sustainable aquaculture and oyster farming. It started as a side gig of his academic pursuit. Seaweed farming is a kind of happy accident. “I love being on the water and I like growing things that are good for the environment,” he said. “Kelp farming lets me do both.”
Sugar kelp is still in the experimental stage, but it has become the best seaweed for aquaculture in New York. In addition to being a native plant and a delicious vegetable, it cleans the ocean, captures carbon and nitrogen from the water, and helps prevent ocean acidification and the flowering of harmful algae. For every acre of planted kelp, nitrogen (a pollutant from human waste) is removed from water at 10 times the rate of the nitrogen reduction purification system currently mandated for new homes throughout Saffol County. Cultured kelp does not interfere with recreation as its growing season begins in December, ends with a dramatic burst of growth in May, is harvested prior to the boat season and is just in time to get out of the water.
Last December, Governor Kathy Hokul signed a law permitting kelp farming in Suffolk County. The bill has begun leasing 110,000 acres of Peconic estuary shellfish for seaweed farming. Proponents called it the kelp bill.
“New York has used this new law to make real progress towards cleaning waterways and creating economic opportunities for local farmers,” Governor spokesman Leo Rosales wrote in an email. I am. He added that the state is working with research groups, local governments, and industries to develop infrastructure for harvesting and transporting kelp for markets, the environment, and the local economy.
Big problem: Few farmers have figured out how to grow kelp well in New York. At the end of the growing season in May of this year, the autumn planting season was approaching, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation had not issued any kelp farming permits. So far, only two commercial farmers have applied.
But Doall is confident that his technique can be applied to almost any farm. “Every farm has its own personality,” he said. “Some are in the deep sea, some are in the shallows. Some farmers come up with things and some power them out. They all work.”
Despite the desires behind the kelp bill, New York’s coastal waters do not ideally fit traditional kelp cultivation practices. Doall was first interested in kelp as a way to diversify oyster farming. As discovered by farmers in Maine and Connecticut, he needed winter crops to grow with oysters. However, he learned that all kelp farming in the United States takes place in the deep sea, accompanied by a 10-foot-long tendril that hangs from a line suspended in the water and sways freely in the sea. These conditions do not exist in the knee-deep waters of long island oyster farms.
But Doall had an idea. “No one really tried to grow in the shallows,” he said. “I like the challenge.”
In 2018, New York Farm Viability InstituteDoall devised a simple stakeout line method for growing kelp in a few feet of water, without the expensive anchors traditionally required for seaweed. He didn’t even need a boat.He tested a new method with Paul McCormick’s Great gun An oyster farm in Moriches Bay off the Hamptons.
McCormick and Dole attended Masapequa High School in the 1980s and were unaware of each other’s existence. It was oyster farming that united them a few years later. The two disagreed with experts who said it was impossible to grow kelp in shallow water. They ended up producing 4-9 pounds of kelp per foot of the line they planted for four consecutive years. Doall argues that this is more of a real seaweed carrier than any other farm in New York.
“Mike Doll invented shallow kelp farming,” said Bren Smith, founder of. GreenWave, A Connecticut-based organization, first trained Doall in kelp farming. Currently, Doall is a master farmer and is willing to give advice, troubleshoot, and get wet, and is eager to help fledgling kelp farmers.
The words of the kelp master spread. Does the buoy loosen? He can tie a track hitch or a bowline and knows which knot works. Can the seed thread be unwound? He removes the fid and puts it back in place, much like setting up a new line of kelp at the oyster farm in Noyak Bay one cold morning last winter. In fact, with bare hands.
For four years after Doall began growing kelp, he has devised techniques for all types of aquatic environments in New York. From the fast-flowing, muddy East River to the shallow sandy bottoms of Morichez Bay to the deep, pristine waters. Peconic estuary. He provided advice and planted in more than 15 commercial facilities. All are considered experimental, as state regulators are still developing health and safety regulations for seaweed farming.
Thanks to Doall’s ability to teach other farmers how to grow seaweed in New York once it’s on track, where no one has ever grown.
Seaweed farming has rarely failed in the US economy compared to Asia, where most of the world’s kelp is grown. In the United States, seaweed is cultivated primarily in Alaska and New England, but despite being close to New York’s vast coastline and cities with enthusiastic kelp eaters, the state is underdeveloped. ..
Harvesting at the Peconic estuary opened by the kelp bill has so far failed. Kelp is anemic, has thin leaves, is stunted, or is not growing at all. The planting may have been too late, Doall said, but he doubts another possible explanation. that too cleaning. Contaminants like nitrogen tend to be low in those places, leaving kelp with few nutrients to promote its growth.
Karen Ribara, who had a line of kelp at Peconic Bay’s oyster farm for the first time this year, pointed out that the ability of kelp to remove toxins from water is a major reason she planted it. “I don’t know how many commercially viable kelp there are, but I’m more interested in the environmental benefits anyway,” she said.
Fertilizers, cosmetics and fuels are all established uses of kelp, but food kelp offers the best prices and is also the best opportunity to make seaweed economically viable in New York. One of the latest commercial futures of the Konbu Conversion Bank is Sue Wicks, a former WNBA Hall of Fame basketball player. She raises oysters on a farm in shallow water, a short distance from Mr. McCormick, and has been raising kelp for the second year.
The first harvest was bust, but last month Wicks harvested hundreds of pounds of sugar kelp. Her yields are turning into kelp purees, pickles and seasonings. East End Food Institute Cornell University’s Faculty of Agricultural and Life Sciences aims to encourage chefs and food manufacturers to find new ways to use kelp.As part of a project supported by Moore Family Charity FoundationSupporting the cause of conservation, but not yet sold.
“In a few years, we’ll all be considered successful overnight,” Wicks said. “I want to be part of the future and what food do I eat? And I can do it in the bay where I grew up, where my father grew up and my grandfather and grandmother grew up. Just tying a knot with sugar kelp is doing something positive. “
Growing kelp at the New Town Creek Alliance in Brooklyn, Shanjana Mahmood is ready to join the community. The interest in kelp arose from the environmental interest in kelp as well as the enthusiasm for eating it.
Doall advised her to start by learning about oyster farming in shallow water farms. Then she followed Mr. Dole’s example by planting kelp in places where no one expected to grow. Newtown Creek, a super fund site and one of the most toxic waterways in the United States. Of course, you can’t eat kelp from New Town Creek. Like all the seaweeds in New York today, the kelp she grew there was experimental.
However, she is currently applying for a farming lease near Morichez Bay, where she wants to grow kelp for food. “I didn’t come from water or boat life,” said Mahmood. “Kelp farming seemed feasible.”