Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

STUDY ON THE GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF RED SEAWEED KAPPAPHYCUS ALVAREZII THROUGH DIFFERENT CULTIVATION METHODS AT OKHA PORT, GUJARAT, INDIA

Kirtankumar V. Tandel, Nilesh H Joshi, Gauravkumar M. Tandel, Ramiz R. Halai, M.R. Patel and Jitendrakumar T. Tandel

Abstract

The west coast of India (Okha Port, Gujarat) harbors several habitats with floristic, faunal and climatic peculiarities, which provides plenty of reasons to study the characteristics of existing seaweed iodiversity. With this aim, the present study was conducted to measure the growth performance of red seaweed Kappaphycus alvarezii through different cultivation methods viz. raft culture method, polythene culture method, long line culture method during October 2013 to April 2014 (total 60 days) of Okha Port, Gujarat, India. The growth performance was measured in two different seasons -winter and summer. It is concluded that the raft culture method exhibited the maximum growth when compared to other methods. Highest mean growth of Kappaphycus alvarezii for season- 1 (October-December) at 60 days was 14.08 ± 1.15 kg. FW observed in raft culture method, while the lowest 9.41 ± 1.15 kg. FW observed in polythene bag method. On the same way highest growth in season-2 were also demonstrated by raft method (18.13 ± 0.38 kg. FW), while lowest by polythene bag method (12.41 ± 0.55). The growth performance of season-2 was significantly higher than the growth of season-1. While Daily Growth Rate (%) was higher in raft method, it is 3.24 at 60 days and 3.86 at 45 days for season-1, for season-2 it was 3.67 and 4.61 for 60 and 45 days respectively.