In recent years, since the establishment of abalone
cultivation in Chile, there has been a strong demand for
fresh seaweed, mainly Macrocystis, in order to feed the
abalone. Currently, in Chile, both the red abalone (Haliotis
rufescens) and the Japanese abalone (Haliotis discus
hannai) are being cultivated. Vásquez et al. (2006)
estimated that these cultivations require an average of
500 t fresh algae per month. Moreover, this amount is
continuously growing, and it has been roughly calculated
that close to 1,000 t of abalone will be produced by 2010.
This would require 100,000 t of brown algae. The greatest
challenge for this industry is to obtain fresh algae for
feeding the abalone, which has become one of the greatest
limiting factors (Viana et al. 1993; Corazani and Illanes
1998; Camus 2005). Until now, the algal supply has been
collected from natural kelps populations which are
extracted in large volumes. This means that the collection
area needs to be expanded as the algae supply is becoming
exhausted near the abalone cultivation centers (Pizarro
2003), which already is the case in northern Chile (Bulboa,
C. personal observation).