Help it take hold
Fix a different agent to the surface, and the same treatment that keeps life off makes a surface that living things settle on more easily. At sea it is being tried for restoring seagrass beds such as eelgrass; on land, it is used to build farm soil. We are also considering greening, and seaweed beds on structures in the sea.
Eelgrass beds
For local governments, fishing cooperatives and research institutes
See the Eelgrass beds page
Rice husks for better soil
For farmers, JA agricultural cooperatives and local governments
Where seaweed has disappeared from the sea (isoyake), we are considering providing places under water that seaweed settles on easily, to help the beds recover.
Talk to us about “Bringing seaweed back to barren coasts”The published report of KAKEN grant 22K04725 (fiscal 2022–2024; principal investigator: Professor Kensuke Kuroda, our technical supervisor; co-investigator: Professor Osamu Terakado) gives these results.
Vinylon rope with proteins or ions fixed to its surface was placed in the sea, and visual checks found far more algae and shellfish settling and growing on it naturally. Cord with protein fixed to it, placed in sea water where no seaweed was growing, grew algae on the cord alone, with none seen around it.
Talk to us about “A base for seaweed to settle and grow (treated rope and cord)”
Vinylon nori-net rope 2 mm across, with protein fixed to it and stretched on 50 cm square frames, gave about twice the nori yield of untreated rope when tried in the sea.
Talk to us about “Nori and seaweed farming nets”
We are considering bringing parts or surface treatments that create seaweed beds to offshore wind foundations, breakwaters, seawalls and other structures in the sea, and to tidal flats.
Talk to us about “Seaweed beds on structures in the sea”
As a response to the Seto Inland Sea becoming poorer in nutrients, we are considering a system in which surface-treated fishing gear releases nutrients at a controlled rate, together with standards for such gear. We set this out in a policy proposal in December 2025.
Talk to us about “Fishing gear that releases nutrients”
For greening railway forests, slopes, roads, ports and airports, deserts, and hillsides after landslides, we are considering treating the surface of existing greening base materials so that native seeds, water and microbes take hold more easily while unwanted weeds find it harder to grow. We are also considering a one-year, step-by-step test: comparisons in the lab, then small outdoor plots, then trials on site.
Talk to us about “Greening (slopes, railway forests, hillsides and more)”
Working with us
Treated materials for restoring seagrass beds
Working with us
Blue carbon credits
Working with us
Licensing the rice husk treatment equipment
Ocean data
Monitoring seagrass beds by satelliteTell us where — at sea, in a field, on a slope — and what you would like to take hold there.
Talk to us
SeatecHIROSHIMA Ltd.