Kelp vs. Cold. Who wins? 

The health of SoundWaters kelp farm may not have been your primary concern during the extreme cold temperatures in February, but now that we’re on the subject aren’t you a little curious how the kelp is doing?  We were wondering too because Stamford Harbor was completely iced over preventing us from reaching the farm.

The answer?  The buoys and lines are in place and the kelp is growing well. Cold for us is not necessarily cold for kelp as long as it stays below the surface of the water. Sugar kelp thrives in cold, nutrient-rich water so while it was unusually cold for us here, kelp has been known to even grow under ice in places like Alaska. Worse for kelp than extreme cold is high heat which destroys tissue and can lead to fouling and being out-competed by other algae.

One of the beautiful things about kelp is that it will grow fine without our help because it requires no input of fertilizer or water. Now that we’re back on the farm, our students are tracking growth and measuring wet weight vs. dry weight to estimate how much carbon and nitrogen the kelp is sequestering.