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Mariculture in the Channel Islands
Let’s look at sample of the plants and animals that are being farmed around the California Channel.

Seaweed

People have collected seaweed for thousands of years for their land crops / agriculture. Farmers and gardeners collect the seaweed from the shore where it has been left behind as the tide has risen and then gone back out to sea. They take it home, rinse the salty seaweed, chop it up, and add it to their soil as a nutrient to create rich compost.

  • Seaweed is used to fertilize coconut palms in Asia.
  • Seaweed is used to fertilize wheat, grass, celery, apples and vegetables in England and Ireland.
  • Seaweed is mentioned in ancient texts of the Middle East as a fertilizer.


  • In California there are companies experimenting with growing seaweed for food, as is already done in Asia for sushi.
  • In the United States, seaweed is a common ingredient in ice cream as a thickener.


  • Off the coast of the Channel, with the islands as a backdrop, large barges can be seen trawling the golden-green kelp beds for seaweed - pulling it onto the barge and chopping it for cleaning and shipping from shore.


  • Seaweed is not only a food and a fertilizer - it is also a thickening agent in cosmetics as well as foods, and vegetarians prefer it to the use of gelatin ( which is derived from horse hooves ) as a base for jello and pies.


    • Lights from the Sea

    The Sunnyside Sea Farm is raising a different type of mariculture product - Pyrocystis fusiformis. These are tiny plants that live in the sea. They are single cells that have flagella and sometimes swim. They look like dust particles in the water. Their amazing characteristic is that they produce a beautiful light at night if you swish them. We make samples available to our camp Internet classrooms and learners.

    What is Happening ?

    Pyrocystis bioluminescence is set by a biological clock, just like our sleep patterns. At night the cells product the chemicals that cause a light show - called a luciferin-luciferase reaction. During the day, in indirect light in the ocean or in a sample bag in your class, the tiny single cell plants photosynthesize - take in light as energy to grow and multiply. At night they release the by-products of their photosynthesis - and this is the glow that you can see in the sea or in your sample bag, at night when they are disturbed by a boat, sea animal, or your hand moving in the water - or by tapping and swishing the sample bag.

    Sunnyside Sea Farm has had the ingenuity to cultivate these plants in a salt water solution that is then packages in a plastic bag and made available to learners of all ages. We encourage you to take a bag home for a night and share with your family this amazing plant that gives off light similar to a firefly.

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