Today we celebrate the success of our live seaweed experiment, where we took fresh seaweed, carefully extracted the sorus tissue (seaweed spores), and attached them to grow lines in our hatchery’s grow tanks. Over time, we nursed these seeded lines until they developed into healthy plantlets, ready for oceanic deployment. This process not only demonstrates our ability to cultivate seaweed independently but also reinforces our capability to scale our solution efficiently.

Our unconventional, Breaking Bad-style RV biological clean-room has proven to be a game-changer. Not only has it allowed us to convert live seaweed into viable plantlets on grow lines, but it has also demonstrated success in transitioning gametophytes to plantlets. These results validate our ability to create a sterile, controlled environment for seaweed cultivation—an essential step in scaling our operations while maintaining quality and consistency.

This success marks a pivotal moment for Fiora Mara. By proving that our methods work, we’re laying the foundation for a scalable and sustainable system that will drive our mission forward. We’re excited about what’s next—refining our processes, expanding our capabilities, and taking the next steps toward deploying our biodegradable seaweed farms in the open ocean. Stay tuned as we continue to push the boundaries of innovation in ocean-based carbon sequestration.

At Fiora Mara, we are committed to sustainable aquaculture and to cultivating seaweed in a way that benefits both the environment and the communities we serve. Recently, with our partnership with Hart Hatchery, we collected live seaweed from the waters off the coast of Long Island and began extracting the seaweed sorus (seeds) for re-planting. This is a second method of growing seaweed plantlets on grow lines, the first is the gametophyte(1,2) method, which was a huge success for us. This effort is part of our long-term strategy to source seaweed from the regions that we operate in, ensuring that we only grow plants that are well-suited to local ecosystems, avoiding any negative impact on their natural balance.

1. Collecting Live Seaweed from Long Island

In collaboration with Hartland Lobster, our team obtained live seaweed from the rich, biodiverse waters off Long Island. This step is key to our cultivation process, as we aim to support local biodiversity and create resilient, regionally adapted seaweed populations. By sourcing seaweed directly from the areas where we intend to operate, we ensure that the plants we grow are genetically diverse and well-suited to thrive.

2. Transporting to Our Pilot Seaweed Hatchery in New Jersey

Once the seaweed was collected, it was carefully transported to our pilot seaweed hatchery in New Jersey. The journey was managed with great attention to detail to preserve the health of the seaweed, ensuring that it arrived at our facility in optimal condition for the next phase of processing and cultivation.

3. Processing the Seaweed to Extract Sorus Tissue

At our hatchery, we began processing the live seaweed to encourage it to release sorus tissue, a crucial step in our seaweed cultivation process. Sorus contains spores that are essential for growing seaweed plantlets from scratch on our grow lines. The extraction requires precision and care to ensure the sorus is extracted properly, to help ensure optimal results.

4. 24 Hours of Careful Cultivation

After approximately 20 hours of processing, the sorus tissue was successfully released into our beakers. We then transferred it into our grow tanks, where it was kept in the dark for 24 hours to settle and stabilize. This incubation period is crucial for preparing the sorus to attach to our grow lines and to begin their next stages of development. Once the 24 hours passed, we exposed the sorus to light, which triggered the growth cycle and set the stage for the plantlets to begin developing.

5. Supporting Local Ecosystems Through Localized Cultivation

This successful process is an important step in Fiora Mara’s long-term goal of growing localized seaweed based on the varied areas that we operate. It is a way to ensure that our seaweed is adapted to their natural surroundings and by using local strains we promote an approach where we minimize the risks associated with introducing non-native species and promotes the growth of sustainable, resilient seaweed.

We are pleased with the success of this first big step of the grow process and look forward to expanding our efforts in other regions. With each step, Fiora Mara is closer to achieving its goal of growing seaweed around the world and capturing the massive amount of carbon that seaweed stores for the long term.

With the male and female gametophytes being combined and applied to the grow lines that are wrapped around PVC piping, we’ve entered the early stages of nurturing them to maturity. This initial test is focused on evaluating our hatchery processes and our methods for growing gametophytes into plantlets in our tanks. Our future tests will explore different methods, including working with seaweed spores.

Conducted in a shared warehouse space, this experiment aims to demonstrate that our hatchery can maintain a clean, contamination-free environment while functioning under challenging conditions. Success in this phase will confirm that our hatchery design is capable of being constructed at any location, producing deployment-ready seedlings, adaptable to more rugged settings like an ocean bound barge.

This testing is essential for achieving our long-term vision: creating a portable hatchery that can be deployed from barges during oceanic journeys. By using collecting seaweed and isolating gametophytes from the varied regions where we operate, we aim to seed our self-sinking, biodegradable seaweed farms directly in the ocean. Proving the effectiveness of our hatchery design ensures that our methods are scalable and capable of supporting barge-based operations, driving large-scale carbon removal globally.

As we refine our hatchery and progress toward full-scale ocean deployment, we’re taking another exciting step closer to realizing our vision for the future – where seaweed plays a crucial role in capturing significant amounts of carbon while protecting the ocean.

Controlled Clean-Room Environment

At the heart of our new facility is a meticulously designed clean-room environment. This space is housed within a warehouse and features positive pressure to prevent contaminants, ensuring our seaweed thrives in optimized conditions. This level of care underscores our commitment to preventing contamination, enhancing growth conditions and overcoming obstacles when our design is moved to a barge on the ocean.

Aquaculture Tanks Ready for Action

We’ve also completed the setup of our first two aquaculture tanks. The first tank is dedicated to growing sugar kelp on grow lines, promising a robust and healthy yield. The second tank is set aside for experimental purposes, where we are excited to be the first hatchery to explore the potential of growing Ulva plantlets on grow lines – with the hopes of establishing a summer crop.

Ready Access to Sea Water

To streamline our operations, we’ve collected many gallons of ocean water that are stored on-site for easy access. This ensures that our tanks will always be supplied with the most suitable water, which is crucial for optimizing the growth of our seaweed.

Advanced Transitional Working Area

Our transitional working area is now fully developed and equipped. Here, we measure our progress with high-precision microscopes, organize additional nutrients to maintain a healthy water environment, perform miscellaneous tasks and manage spools of seed-lines that are cut and configured to perfection.

This space is designed to be the versatile nerve center of our operations, where our progress meets practical application.

The Next Stage: Introducing Seaweed Spores

With everything in place, we are now prepared for the next stage: introducing seaweed spores. This step will officially kick off the growth phase for our seaweed grow lines, enabling us to both verify our methods and make changes as needed.

Stay tuned for more updates as Fiora Mara pushes forward in the goal to help save the planet.  Our journey has just begun, and we can’t wait to share our progress with you!

The clean-room is a controlled environment with low levels of contaminants, used for the sensitive biological processes. This setup marks a significant step in preparing our seaweed hatchery for the cultivation of seed strings for use in our long term goals of absorbing massive amounts of carbon on the open ocean.

To create the clean-room, we used wood and painter’s plastic, ensuring the hatchery remains contaminant-free while minimizing odors that may impact our neighbors. Additionally, we cut PVC pipes and wrapped the seed strings, configured the chiller and bubbler, and added tank lighting to prepare our aquariums’ environment for cultivation

In the pilot’s next phase, we are testing various biodegradable seed strings such as manilla-based hemp rope, cannabis-based hemp, and jute rope for strength and degradation. As we wait for our new source of seaweed spores, we’re continuing to make improvements to our hatchery, such as better air circulation, smaller diameter PVC pipes to maximize output, and improved seawater filtration methods.

As we build and experiment with our hatchery, we’re always keeping our vision in mind: construct a sinkable seaweed farm to sequester carbon at the bottom of the ocean.