The photo above is of an oyster shell from the Lynnhaven with spat all over it. Spat is not a very endearing term for something so little that will grow up to be so delicious. Something in the water often attracts them to oyster beds and the little ones drop down and attach themselves to the older oysters or discarded shell. Soon, many eggs are fertilized and turn into little larvae-baby oyster orphans looking for a home in which to settle down and grow up. ![]() Soon there is a “chain reaction of spawning, which sweeps across the oyster beds, turning the water milky white with millions of eggs and with clouds of sperm,” said Alice Jane Lippson and Robert Lippson in “Life in the Chesapeake Bay.”Īll the while, you are sipping a beer and eating a picnic lunch above! Oyster moms and dads on reefs everywhere spawn in early summer and warming water temperatures stimulate males and females to release their sperm and eggs into the water. If you are out on a boat this weekend, picture this scene in the life and times of oysters taking place in the water below you. The remains of these structures which were used in the past are still visible throughout the bay.While we are sitting here enjoying a July 4th holiday weekend, oysters are hard at work in the Lynnhaven River and beyond, making baby oysters to keep the waterways clean. Wooden pillars were replaced by concrete and iron pillars until the appearance of floating parks. A lot of pillars, tied together with coconut ropes, formed a park or a sea garden. Later on, the more advanced technology was putting the wooden pillars into the seabed. Every oyster farmer had a special location for throwing the branches, which he would extract after 3 years and then harvest the oysters. The oldest technology was based on throwing the oak, spruce or olive tree branches into the sea and extracting them with adult oysters. Navigability of the parks is maintained by the buoys, while floating lines are anchored on both sides by concrete anchors. Modern farming of Mali Ston oysters occurs on floating parks. During this time, each oyster passes through the hands of the farmer around 5 times. The farming cycle from laying down collectors to reaching the market size of the Mali Ston oyster takes two to three years. After the cement gets dry, ropes are installed to floating parks, where oysters continue their growth to the market size. One such rope contains from 40 to 80 oysters. The oysters are attached with cement to the plastic rope, 2 to 4 meters long. The most common technique of farming Mali Ston oysters to the market size is cementing. During this period of around one year, the oysters reach an adequate size for the next stage of farming. Crates and nets are continuously taken out so shellfish density is lowered. Juvenile oysters are put in baskets (crates) or nets which are tied to floating lines. Small oysters removed from the collectors continue their breeding process to the market size in different types of nets or crates. Together with the attached juvenile Mali Ston oysters, they are hung on floating installations where they can grow to their market size. Individual nets created by segmenting the net collectors are called pergolari. Net collectors can be segmented, after which oysters continue to grow on the same surface to which they were attached. The collectors are installed when there is a sufficient concentration of oyster larvae in the water column.īreeding of juvenile oysters to market size In the past, sheaves of wooden branches were used and today collectors made from plastic nets are mostly used. During the collection period, sea currents bring small oyster larvae onto these collectors, they attach and this marks the beginning of the breeding process.ĭifferent materials are used for collecting juvenile oysters. Farmers prepare collectors i.e., different base for collecting the spat and they place them on special locations along the seabed. ![]() The oyster spat is collected from the nature. It is also interesting that oysters are hermaphrodites and they change their sex several times during their life. It is interesting to note that one adult oyster can produce up to 2 million larvae in one cycle. Unlike the other areas, the specificity of Mali Ston Bay is that oysters spawn here twice a year, in spring and autumn. ![]() Once in the open sea, the larvae float with the sea currents for a while, after which they begin sinking to the seabed. The females keep the small larvae for a while, after which they release them into the sea to increase their chances of survival. It does not occur in the open sea but inside the female’s shell after the males release the gametes into the open sea and the females collect them through filtration. Oysters from the genus Ostrea differ from the other oysters by fertilization.
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