Introducing the OTAQ Life Plankton Analysis System (LPAS) to Abalone farms

About the project

UK-registered Partner: OTAQ – Harry Rotsch
Africa-registered Partner: Abagold Ltd – Sarah Halse

The grant was used for a visit to South Africa to explore the placing of the LPAS system on Abalone farms and learn about other possible needs for technology that are required on Abalone farms.

The 4 people who travelled on the grant were two from Aberdeen University and two from OTAQ, as there is currently an ongoing collaboration on the LPAS project. The visit was for a week and a number of Abalone producers were visited to introduce LPAS to the farms. This was received very positively as this will help with detecting Harmful Algae Blooms (HABs) early and reliably which will help during the production process.

A number of other requirements were discussed to extend the capabilities, especially for Abalone, that would require further research and development on the system. Other issues were discussed that need technical and specialist solutions that are within OTAQ’s capabilities.