Maine’s aquaculture industry, both for kelp and shellfish, has been expanding both in number of producers, scale, and farm-gate value over the last decade. With the goal of supporting industry growth and sustainability via applied research, the Aquaculture Research Institute (ARI) at the University of Maine (UM) has made key investments through a cooperative agreement with the USDA-ARS to develop and manage a full scale, diversified aquaculture research farm located at the UM Darling Marine Center (DMC). The aquaculture experimental farm is a 1.7-acre farm located in the Damariscotta River in Midcoast Maine permitted for a wide variety of low-trophic level species and gear types with both intertidal and subtidal tracts.
At the DMC we are able to bring multiple species of macroalgae and shellfish from the hatchery through harvest. Our kelp research focuses on increasing the resilience and sustainability of nursery culture and its downstream effects on production. The key innovation in the nursery is the use of seaweed photobioreactors to develop a kelp strain library for preserving genetic diversity, strain selection, and reducing the need for wild harvest for sorus tissue. Our shellfish research program centers on genetic selection of oysters, ecophysiology, and novel gear/species exploration. An onsite research hatchery at the DMC supports oyster breeding and seed production for novel species such as razor clams, while the farm itself provides a platform for testing novel gear and grow out techniques.