Bantry Marine Research Station

NORI

Duration 3 years
Funding Body Marine Institute
Project Costs €548,745 (funded €449,022)
Project Co-ordinator BMRS
Number of Partners 2
NORI

The mission of NORI is to develop an Irish production process of the edible seaweed nori, which is well known for its use in sushi rolls. This will be successful when the following three objectives have been achieved:

1. Successfully domesticate Irish Porphyra umbilicalis (nori)

  • Obtain fertile blades at ideal conditions for sexual reproduction of nori.
  • Obtain blades that contain archeospores for the asexual reproduction of nori.
  • Isolate several strains and select the best performing strain for aquaculture.

2. Achieve desirable quality traits in the product

  • Determine optimal growth conditions for high yield.
  • Determine pre-harvest culture conditions for optimal biochemical composition of biomass.

3. Upscale to pre-commercial scale

  • Achieve free-floating cultivation at lab scale.
  • Achieve free-floating cultivation in 600 to 1000 L tanks.
  • Achieve free-floating cultivation in 10000 L tanks.

BMRS leads this project and will apply its expertise in seaweed cultivation to successfully develop a nori cultivation process. The group of Prof Stengel from the university of Galway will apply their expertise to characterise the biomass produced and optimise the cultivation conditions.

Nori blade release spores that will grow into new bladesNori blade release spores that will grow into new blades
A juvenile Nori blade magnified with a microscopeA juvenile Nori blade magnified with a microscope
Nori (Porphyra umbilicalis) bladeNori (Porphyra umbilicalis) blade
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