Cultivation of a Green Alga Codium fragile by Regeneration of Medullary Threads

Abstract

Utricles isolated from Codium thallus developed into medullary threads and the threads grew into prostrate clusters in the culture. When the prostrate clusters are cut into short fragments, new shoots were regenerated in a few days, and developed into the threads. For unialgal culture, the fragments were isolated with capillary pipettes. Fully grown threads were transferred into Erlenmeyer flasks and maintained as the stock culture. For the cultivation experiments, the threads were cut into short pieces about one mm with razors, they were allowed to attach on synthetic twine and a part of nori-net in a glass vessel. After three weeks culture, the threads on the substrata were transferred into the sea, Nomo Bay, western Kyushu. Many erect thalli of C. fragile appeared on the substrata after one month and grew to 4 to 5 cm length after 4 months. From the results of the cultivation experiments by monthly planting through the year, the erect thalli grew well from October to June, but not from July to September. © 1989, The Japanese Society of Fisheries Science. All rights reserved.