Aquaculture 2025

March 6 - 10, 2025

New Orleans, Louisiana USA

Add To Calendar 08/03/2025 12:00:0008/03/2025 12:20:00America/ChicagoAquaculture 2025IMPROVEMENT OF EASTERN OYSTER Crassostrea virginica SPAWNING PERFORMANCE UTILIZING INNOVATIVE METHODSSalon EThe World Aquaculture Societyjohnc@was.orgfalseDD/MM/YYYYanrl65yqlzh3g1q0dme13067

IMPROVEMENT OF EASTERN OYSTER Crassostrea virginica SPAWNING PERFORMANCE UTILIZING INNOVATIVE METHODS

Stephanie T. Alexander*, Jeffrey A. Alexander, Robert Carey, Alicia Klages, Michael Nossick, Shane Simms, Stacey W. Spicer, Julie Trommatter

 

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Horn Point Laboratory Oyster Hatchery

2020 Horns Point Road

Cambridge, Maryland 21613 USA

tobash@umces.edu

 



The Horn Point Laboratory Oyster Hatchery (HPLOH), based at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), has a long history of producing Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) larvae, spat-on-shell, and seed oysters for use in restoration, fishery, research, and educational programs. As all steps in production are continuously evaluated for improvement, one area that HPLOH has been recently focusing on is the spawning performance. So far, the spawning stage at HPLOH has predominantly relied on batch spawns using a traditional mass spawning table for diploid larval production and individual cup racks for triploid spawns. This season (2024), a modified version of our individual cup spawning rack was tested for production of both diploid and triploid larvae, and its performance was compared with the one of the mass spawning table. This customized design promotes the concurrent spawning of up to 100 oysters, allowing temperature, salinity, and ploidy to be controlled, with the ability to produce diploid wild, diploid disease resistant, and  triploid strains without sacrificing adult broodstock. This design also involves both flow-through and recirculating water options. The recirculating mode promotes a simultaneous stimulation of all oysters, while the flow-through mode facilitates the control of inflow and outflow water to/from each individual cup, allowing a more efficient egg collection.  With a significant increase in the overall egg production, the results of this study highlight the potential for this system to improve both the accuracy of fecundity assessments and the hatchery production of C. virginica larvae and spat.