Oyster Farming

choi

Peter S Green, Profits on the Half Shell. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, May 27, 2012
http://www.businessweek.com/arti ... rms-are-on-the-rise

Quote:

"The oysters grow in about two years from seeds smaller than a dime to meaty, hard-shelled adults

"Barriers to entry for would-be oyster farmers are few. Leases go for less than $200 an acre on publicly owned shoreline in the Northeast, says Bob Rheault, a marine biologist who runs a lobbying group for East Coast shellfish farmers. Laboratory-spawned seed costs about $5,000 to $10,000 a year, while the perforated PVC pouches that hold the oysters and the racks that anchor them to the sea floor run a few thousand dollars an acre. The rest is sweat equity.

"Virginia and Louisiana produce the bulk of the commercial oyster supply: the stuff sold by the gallon for frying and stews. But the real money is in live oysters, shucked by hand and served on the half shell. Diners in Boston and Chicago want larger oysters, while New Yorkers prefer their shellfish petite, a better business proposition for growers [because shorter breeding time in the latter increases profits].

Note:
(a) In print but not online, there are two summaries below the title but before the text:
"> On the Atlantic seaboard, a revivin of small-scale of oyster farming
> 'The catchier the name, the more selling power'"

(b) Walrus and Carpenter Oysters
http://walrusandcarpenteroysters.com/farmers.html
(Walrus and Carpenter are the epithets of the two owners/farmers, Jules Opton-Himmel being "Carpenter")

* Jules
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules
(Jules is the French form of the Latin "Julius")

(c) Ninigret Pond
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninigret_Pond
(in Charlestown, Rhode Island)
(d) For "MSX parasite," see Haplosporidium nelsoni
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplosporidium_nelsoni
(also known as MSX (multi-nucleated unknown); first described in 1957

Which is protozoa.
(e)
(i) terroir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir
(ii) The word "meroir" is recently coined, rarely used and not found in any dictionary. I can see the the first two letters "me" might be related to sea, as in marine.
(f) Regarding quotation 2.

Small-Scale Oyster Farming for Pleasure and Profit in Washington. Washington Sea Grant (WSG) Program, University of Washington, November 2002 (revived 8/04), at page 10
http://wsg.washington.edu/mas/pdfs/smallscaleoysterlr.pdf
("Single Oyster Culture Methods  The resurgence of interest in freshly shucked oysters on the halfshell has invigorated the market for individual oysters called 'singles.' Of uniform size and quality, these oysters usually command higher prices than do clusters of oysters, which must be manually broken apart to harvest the meats that are then frozen or jarred for later sale. * * * Rack and Bag Culture [Figure 4]")