hatchery systems, raft production of seed oysters, 

 and culture of oysters to market size using off- 

 bottom techniques. Two commercial shellfish 

 hatcheries have been built, one at Urbanna, Va.,and 

 the other on West River in Maryland. Both are pro- 

 ducing cultchless oysters. Unfortunately these 

 single oysters are very vulnerable to predators and 

 the handling of the juveniles is a formidable prob- 

 lem (Matthiessen, 1970b). The former company is 

 attempting to grow them to market size while the lat- 

 ter is selling the small spat to private growers. There 

 are also two research agencies, Virginia Institute of 

 Marine Science (Andrews and Mason, 1969) and 

 the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (Hidu. 1971: 

 Hidu cl a!., 1969), working on hatchery techniques. 



Two agencies, the Maryland Department of 

 Natural Resources (Otto, 1969) and the National 

 Marine Fisheries Service (Shaw, 1970), have been 

 studying raft production of seed oysters. Shells, 

 either on strings or in chicken-wire bags, are sus- 

 pended from rafts. E.xcellent sets are being obtained 

 using the off-bottom techniques, but to date it has 

 not been adapted commercially in Chesapeake Bay. 



The National Marine Fisheries Service has also 

 been studying the off-bottom culture of oysters 

 (Shaw, 1969, 1970, 1971). Methods being tested in- 

 clude raft, longline, and rigid-structure. Strings of 

 spat-laden shells are suspended from each floating 

 device and maintained in suspension until the oys- 

 ters reach market size — about 2'/i yr from time of 

 set. It is estimated that 1 1 .9 tons of oyster meats per 

 acre per year could be produced using off-bottom 

 techniques. 



In Virginia the majority of oysters are grown on 

 private leases. Power dredging is the common 

 method used for harvesting although hand tonging is 

 also practiced. The majority of seed for the private 

 bed cultivation comes from the James River. Unfor- 

 tunately, in the late 1950"s and early 1960"s, heavy 

 mortalities from MSX occurred among the oysters in 

 the high salinity waters which included the spawning 

 stocks for James River seed. Since then little or no 

 setting has occurred in the James River. 



The Virginia Institute of Marine Science has been 

 working on developing disease resistant stocks using 

 hatchery techniques. In addition, spat collecting 

 shells are being planted in Great Wicomico, Pian- 

 katank, and other rivers (Bailey and Biggs, 1968). It 

 is hoped that through the development of disease re- 

 sistant stocks and managing around the disease, 

 the oyster industry of Virginia can come back to pro- 

 ductive levels. 



North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia 



The total production for the three south Atlantic 

 states — North Carolina. South Carolina, and 

 Georgia — was estimated to be 1 .4 million pounds in 

 1970. Methods of culture in these three states are 

 primitive, harvesting by hand is not uncommon. Lit- 

 tle attempt has been made, until recently, to investi- 

 gate new aquaculture techniques. In North Carolina, 

 a seed collecting project was undertaken under the 

 federal aid PL 88-309 program. Several varieties of 

 cultch were tested. Because of heavy fouling, the 

 cultch was lifted out of the water periodically. Using 

 the airing technique, good quantities of seed and 

 commercial size oysters were produced, but because 

 of the excessive expense involved in the methods 

 tested, it did not appear commercially feasible (Mar- 

 shall, 1969). 



The Coastal Zone Resources Corporation is at- 

 tempting to grow oysters caught on passenger car 

 tire beads (David Adams, pers. comm.). Eighty tons 

 of eight bead configurations (about 14,000) have 

 been planted in an area where oysters have the repu- 

 tation for high quality and rapid growth. Each con- 

 figuration is anticipated to yield about one-half 

 bushel of oysters in 30 mo. 



Beginning in 1944, extensive studies were con- 

 ducted in South Carolina on the cultivation of oys- 

 ters in ponds. Initially (1944-45), excellent results 

 were obtained and marketable single oysters were 

 produced in 2 yr. In 1950, drought conditions de- 

 veloped and salinities in the ponds rose. A sudden 

 mass mortality among pond held oysters developed 

 probably by Dennocystidium. It was concluded that 

 as long as wild oysters are available to the industry, 

 it is unlikely that pond culture will be economically 

 practicable (Lunz, 1956). 



In Georgia, two members of the Japanese panel. 

 Atsushi Furukawa and Hisashi Kan-no, assisted in 

 an attempt to develop off-bottom oyster culture 

 techniques. Many problems were encountered in- 

 cluding fouling, heavy siltation, erosion, and retarda- 

 tion of growth. It was felt that because of the cur- 

 rent low price of oysters, off-bottom culture did not 

 appear commercially feasible in Georgia at the pre- 

 sent time (Linton. 1968). 



Florida 



In 1970. Florida produced about 3.8 million 

 pounds of oyster meats. The majority of oysters 

 comes from the west coast of Florida. Ovsters are 



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