NOAA Sea Grant awards cash for bigger, better Pacific oyster

TWO University of Southern California (USC) biology professors and a California Sea Grant marine advisor have been awarded US$394,000 in a national US aquaculture research competition sponsored by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Sea Grant.

The two-year award will fund genetic studies and field tests of a newly developed double-hybrid Pacific oyster that the biologists believe can transform the US West Coast’s US$72-million-a-year oyster growing industry. “This research is of great interest to us,” says Jonathan Davis of Taylor Shellfish Farms, one of the region’s largest shellfish growers and a collaborator on the project. “We believe we can leverage grant resources into a new product stream of high-yielding Pacific oysters.”

The new oyster, 15 years in the making, is produced through a two-stage cross-breeding process that confers “hybrid vigour”– superior growth, size and health – to its tasty offspring, says the project’s leader, USC biology professor Dennis Hedgecock. In small-scale experiments funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the first generation hybrid oyster was shown to grow twice as fast as the industry standard, meaning that farm yields could potentially double, too. Read more...

This blog is written by Martin Little The Aquaculturists, published and supported by the International Aquafeed Magazine from Perendale Publishers.