Gracilaria salicornia

Gracilaria salicornia

Recently, Gracilaria salicornia has been commercially harvested from wild stocks as a result of the decline of

Gracilaria edulis standing stock. The agar from this alga has a gel strength of approximately 510 g · cm 2 ( Meena et al. 2008). Over-harvesting of Gr salicornia depleted the standing stock resulting in its cultivation by adopting the tube-net method. Each single tube net is filled with 400 g of G. salicornia seed material. The raft (2 × 2 m size) consists of 15 tube nets totaling an initial biomass of 6.0 kg fresh weight with harvesting every 30–40 days as thalli attain harvestable size. Harvest yields range from 14.1 to 60.62 kg fresh wt raft−1 ( Figure 14 View Figure 14 ) with seven harvests each year (Ganesan et al., unpublished).