Iain Charles Neish1
1PT Sea6 Energy Indonesia, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia.
Efforts are underway among phyconomists to blend precision techniques into the adaptive phyconomy systems that are prevalent in commercial seaweed farming. Phyconomy is the branch of applied phycology that comprises systems of art, science and technology applied to production systems that yield crops of algae. Adaptive phyconomy is a low-cost, low-control approach that is practiced in situations where the biology of algal crop organisms is poorly understood and/or where confounding variables render precision technologies impractical. Precision phyconomy, on the other hand, is a high-cost, high-control approach to algal crop production that is practiced in situations where the biology of crop organisms is well understood, and culture conditions can be comprehensively controlled. With respect to extensive ocean farming of seaweeds, adaptive phyconomy methods prevail, even as the science and technology sector aspires to apply precision techniques to commercial seaweed farming systems; especially in the cases of farm mechanization, information technology, biosecurity, tissue culture techniques and molecular taxonomy as applied to cultivar development and propagation. As phyconomy systems evolve, precision techniques will progressively displace adaptive approaches to yield extensive farm systems that are intermediate on the adaptation-to-precision heuristic model curve.