The Seaweed Consultant was hired by the FAO to assist the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture (MOFA) through the Oceanographic Society of Maldives (OSM) in introducing the Eucheuma (seaweed) farming technology at Gamu Island, Laamu atoll, Maldives.
Several prior attempts to introduce seaweed fanning in the Maldives had failed, mainly due to the problem of fish grazers. The farming technique used in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Tanzania (monoline system) could not be applied successfully in the Maldives due to the abundance of fish grazers which thrive in the lagoons.
When the consultant arrived in the Maldives in February 1996 for his first one-month technical assistance, he brought a sample of the net-bag propagule holders which he had devised in the Philippines to counter problems such as grazer attacks and losses due to turbulent weather. The floating net-bag technique is described in detail in the project field document No. 2. The new technique eliminated also the tedious process of tying every propagule to the monoline, thereby saving a lot of labour cost. When he visited the test station for the Eucheuma at Gamu island, he observed that the plants were almost consumed by the grazers since the propagules were cultured using the monoline system. The remaining plants were untied from the monoline and then brought to another site where the current was good and where the water motion was consistent. The five kilograms of cottonii which were salvaged were planted, placing them in 10 net-bags at the rate of 1/2 kilogram/bag. The propagule line containing the 10 net-bags was installed in the water in the selected area. After 15 days, the plants recovered and showed a good growth rate, which was computed to be 3–4% daily.
The seedlings in the net-bags were split continuously every month. Five hundred net-bags were procured to contain the rapidly increasing volume of seedstocks. By September, 1996, OSM reported that the seedling inventory was already 600 kilograms, requiring additional net-bags (35,000 pieces).
At this time the plant growth had increased to about 5–6% daily, which means that the biomass was doubling every 10–15 days.
In March, 1997, the Seaweed Consultant carried out his second one-month mission to evaluate the performance of the seaweed culture and to introduce the post-harvest technology to the project staff and workers.
The project staff established the pilot seaweed farm on the western shore of Gamu island near the village of Thundee. The anchors and anchor lines were well laid out. There were 600 lines or 6,000 net-bags estimated to contain more than 10,000 kilograms of healthy green and brown cottonii strains. This volume of seedstocks is already sufficient to start a commercial farm. Grazer damage to the plants was still observed. However, the seaweeds had already reached the critical mass whereby the grazers could no longer inflict significant damage to the plants. The propagules were still growing fast at the rate of 5% to 6% per day even during the northeast monsoon season.
At the project site, the consultant prepared and imparted a training program for the personnel sent by MOFA and by the Japan Overseas Volunteer Service (JOVS). The JOVS is also introducing seaweed farming in one of the atolls north of Male. The trainees, Messrs. Ibrahim Nadheeh and Yoshimura, went through the different aspects of seaweed production from farming up to post harvest handling. The training technique “learning by doing”was applied to them as well as to the workers in the pilot farm.
The project staff had already constructed drying tables on the shore near the pilot farm with local materials, such as wood and coconut petioles. The plastic nettings recovered from the sea cucumber activity were used as flooring of the drying tables. The use of drying tables is one method of drying seaweeds. It is simple and inexpensive, but it has some disadvantages. It needs a long canvas (as long as the table itself) to cover the seaweeds in case of rain. The canvass is an expensive material. If a small canvass cover is available, then it is necessary for the workers to move the seaweeds by hand to make a pile towards the centre of the drying table where they can be covered by the small canvass. The re-piling work is time-consuming and critical when rain comes unannounced.
The consultant introduced and taught the staff to make drying racks, an improved method for drying the seaweeds. The drying rack is a rectangular frame, usually measuring 1 × 2 metres, and made of wood or bamboo. The floor is made of wooven bamboo mats or nets which are resistant to degradation by sunlight. When the seaweeds are not yet dried, these frames are portable, hence they can be piled on top of each other. The fresh seaweeds are spread on the drying racks at a density of about 10 kilograms per square metre during night time; the racks are piled on top of each other, about 5 racks per pile, and then covered by a small canvass. The rack system has the advantage of quick recovery or piling, especially during rainy season, and requires only a few small-sized canvass for covering the drying racks. The seaweeds dried on the racks are also easily collected for transport to the warehouse.
About 100 propagule lines were harvested for the drying practice. The fresh seaweeds were spread out on the drying racks and tables at a density of about 10 kilograms per square metre. It took about two days of bright sunshine, or 30 hours of exposure to air and sunlight, to dry the seaweeds to the right dryness of about 35% moisture content. It took 8 kilograms of wet to produce 1 kilogram of dried seaweeds. This wet-to-dry ratio is in the same range as the one of seaweeds produced in other countries.
The workers also practised loading the dried seaweeds into sacks and compacting the content by means of a wooden pestle so that maximum load can be placed in each bag. It was only possible to load about 50 – 60 kilograms per sack, or about 15 metric tonnes per container. Since the buyer or processor of seaweeds requires a minimum load of 20 metric tonnes per container, it is necessary that the seaweeds be baled by means of a baling machine at Laamu before they are shipped to Male where they will be loaded in container vans.
The staff and workers were shown how to pile the dried seaweeds (there are about 1,500 kilograms already stored in the warehouse) on the cement floor so that the product can attain the equilibrium moisture content of about 35%. As long as the seaweeds are well-dried, they will not spoil also if stored for a long time (even more than one year). The dried seaweeds contain about 30% salt which acts as preservative during storage.
