Growing spat in hatcheries

Professor Andrew Jeffs (Leigh Marine Laboratory) explains that some mussel spat is sourced from hatcheries.

Transcript

Professor Andrew Jeffs (Leigh Marine Laboratory)

The other source of mussel spat is in a hatchery, so a hatchery is a human-made system where mussels are bred, a mum and dad mussel produce egg and sperm and then the larvae, which are a little swimming seed, is raised and fed on floating plants again, until it gets to the point where its ready to settle on a piece of seaweed, and then they use Christmas tree rope in the tanks. And the baby mussels settle on that rope and then the rope’s moved out and hung out on a farm.

That’s quite an expensive process to do compared to just going and picking seaweed up off the beach which is covered in millions and millions of mussel spat.

Acknowledgements

SpatNZ
Mass Audubon, Joppa Flats Education Center, Massachusetts
Professor Andrew Jeffs – Leigh Marine Laboratory, Auckland University