Shellfish Aquaculture: Cultivating Quality Products

1. Welcome! Benoit Eudeline PhD, Hatchery production Manager

2. Pacific NorthwestShellfish Aquaculture

3. Overview • Mussel remote setting and farming • Shellfish breeding programs • Geoduck culture

4. Taylor Shellfish in numbers • 400 employees in USA , 100 employees in foreign sites • Annual US Payroll : $ 16 million USD • Annual sales: • US Farms: $ 35 million USD (28% export sales to Asia: $9.8 millions) • Foreign entities: $ 10 million USD • US production in 2007 • 38,600,000 oysters (Half shell, frozen, shocked) • 4,250,000 lbs of Manila Clams (1,930 M/Ton) • 1,250,000 lbs of Mussels (568 M/Ton) • 493,000 lbs of Geoduck (224 M/Ton)

5. 1 nursery in Hawaii 5 farms in Canada 12 farms in the US 1 retail store in Hong Kong • 9,300 acres of farms • 2,930 acres farmed 1 Pearl oyster farm in Fiji 1 farm in Mexico

6. Oyster varieties Kumamoto Olympia Pacifics European Flat

7. Pacific oyster Introduced from Japan ~ 1921 • Crassostrea gigas • Dominant species cultured today on the West Coast of the United States

8. Kumamoto oysters Crassostrea sikamea Initially introduced by Washington Dept. of Fisheries In 1947 and called the “Western Gem”

9. Olympia oysters Ostrea lurida

10. European flat oysters Ostrea edulis

11. Virginicas Crassostrea virginica

12. Manila clam culture

13. Geoduck Culture

14. Mussel Culture

15. Cultivated species

16. The Mediterranean “gallo” mussel • 1980s several people culturing what they understood to be M. edulis in Puget Sound, Washington • crops plagued by haemic neoplasia • 1984 Kamilche Seafarms acquired seed from Ted Kuiper, a Northern California oyster and clam seed producer • Miraculous survival

17. Re-evaluation of West Coast species (Mc Donald and Koehn) • Mytilus trossulus – Alaska to about Central California • Mytilus galloprovincialis – Central California and south • Kamilche Seafarms had inadvertently imported gallos to Puget Sound which were resistant to haemic neoplasia prior to the species differentiation

18. Resistant to haemic neoplasia Generally larger Lives for several years Thicker shinier shell Less dense byssal threads Winter spawner Orange female gonad, white male gonad Plagued by haemic neoplasia causing severe annual mortality Stronger, denser byssal thread Summer spawner Gallos versus trossulus

19. Why remote setting of mussels? • Seed availability (varies but more or less consistent) • Optimize production period by spawning at different time of the year (Feb-march) and (Aug-Sept) Spread production, spread the risk • Choice of species - Gallos in Washington • - Edulis in Canada • Selection, triploids

20. Hatchery seed production

21. Traditional commercial larvae production Large static culture tanks (6000 to 12,000 gallons), (Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery, Tillamook, Or)

22. Traditional algae production Batch culture in large static tanks

23. High density flow-through larvae culture =

24. “Traditional” static larval rearing system • 10,000 to 12,000 gallon fiberglass • Static water, drained every 2-3 days • Temperature drops • “Batch” feeding twice a day • Algae concentration decreasing with time • 1 to 5 larvae/ml

25. High density larval rearing system • 200 liter fiberglass conical tanks • Flow through water supply • -Continuous water and algae supply • -Continuous elimination of waste products • 100 to 150 larvae/ml • Flexibility • -Small tanks • -Time (cleaning, filling) • -Harvesting flexibility

26. Mussel larvae • Larvae cycle about 14 days • Raised at 18 degree Celcius • Set at 200-225 microns, • 140-160 micron screen size

27. 3 remote setting techniques • Seed set on window screen frames • Seed set on ropes / mesh bags • Single seed in downwellers

28. Window screen frames • 2 feet x 8 feet, stacked 15 high • Easy to handle and transport • Reusable • Low labor • Seed is protected from “rubbing” • Good for over wintering • High density and flow can become a problem • 3 to 8 weeks in tanks (1 to 3 mm)

29. Ropes and mesh bags • Standard polyethylene or knitted Polypropylene ropes. • 10 to 15 feet length • Labor intensive • Subject to “rubbing”, loss of seed • Good survival and growth once on the farm (less dense than frames) • 3 to 8 weeks in tanks (1 to 3 mm)

30. Not used anymore as main source of seed production • Used to grow “fall-off” seed • Heavy labor • Crowding • Costly Downweller mussel seed

31. 9 x 9 tanks • Set 6000 feet of ropes OR • 60 frames (4 stacks) • 20 million larvae • 100 USD/ set frame • 1 dollar/foot set rope Setting densities

32. 69 rafts • 10m x 10m, 3 pontoons • 10,000 feet of ropes • 10 to 15 feet ropes • 720 to 1000 ropes per raft • Harvest 50,000 pounds/raft • =25,000 pounds after processing • 17 to 18 month cycle • 45 to 50 rafts harvested each year Raft culture

33. Seed transfer to rafts • Predator exclusion is very important !

34. Seed thinning and socking

35. Mussel harvest

36. Mussel harvest

37. Mussel processing

38. It depends of the wholesale price of your product! • In washington: • Seed cost to produce 1,200,000 pounds is about 200,000 USD: cost of hatchery is 17 cents/pound Farmer gets 1 USD/pound  Viable Is remote setting cost efficient? • In New Zealand: • Farmer gets 20 cent/pound (green mussel) •  not viable without reducing hatchery cost!

39. Shellfish Breeding programs Western Regional Aquaculture Center

40. Why a breeding Program? • Improve production and reduce cost • Improve yield (combine growth rate and survivorship) • Uniform growth rate (reduces handling, harvest cost..) • Reduce inbreeding • Selection for disease resistance (Morest…) • Improve marketability of the product • Triploids and summer availability • Breeding for “looks” (shell/mantle color, shell patterns in clams…)

41. Fundamental question: WHAT TO SELECT FOR? • Breeding programs fail because the “selected” product, after many years and many millions is not worth the extra cost to the industry! Have an extensive discussion with the industry about what is important to them!

42. Inbred lines • P2 • P1 • 0 • X • P1 • 0 “Hybrid Vigor” “Breeding Value” Strategies for Genetic Improvement Selection Crossbreeding Western Regional Aquaculture Center

43. Quantitative Genetics to Stock Improvement Fundamental Assumptions: • Polygenic inheritance • Heritable traits such as growth or yield are determined by many loci that results in continuous phenotypic (e.g. measurable) variation in those traits • Focus of program on measuring phenotypes under controlled, replicated, growing conditions • Long track record of breeding success in plants and animals (including oysters!)

44. Quantitative Genetics • Relationships between the phenotype and genotype due to different genetic mechanisms • Dominance Alleles at a single locus interact, but are not inherited under random mating • Epistasis Loci may interact to produce a phenotype, but are not inherited under random mating • Additivity Loci contribute to the phenotype independently and may be inherited under random mating

45. 0 • 0 “Breeding Value” Quantitative Genetics Fundamentals Selection differential P = G + E Population average Phenotypic variance (this is measurable) Environmental variance (error) Selected individuals Genetic variance (inherited differences) Post-selection average Looking for difference in average phenotype between pre-selection and post selection generations

46. h2 = Heritability By comparing phenotypes of related individuals, we can determine the degree that genetic differences account for the observed variation h2 high Offspring Value for Trait Parental Value for Trait

47. Molluscan Broodstock Program • Started in 1996, OSU, Chris Langdon • Pair mating/Mass selection • Selection based on yield • 2 cohorts a year • 50 families in each cohort • Families assessed my measuring the total weight= YIELD (growth+survival)

48. PERFORMANCE OF MBP FAMILIES AFTER 2 GENERATIONS OF SELECTION MBP Cohorts: 1996 - 2009 Dabob x Dabob Dabob x Willapa Willapa x Willapa Founder Population Pipestem x Pipestem Pipestem x Willapa Dabob x Dabob Willapa x Willapa Japan C. gigas Japan C. sikamea Dabob x Dabob Dabob x Dabob Dabob x Dabob J1 2006 Quarantine Cohort 1 1996 Yaquina, OR Tomales, CA Willapa, WA PW Sound, AK Cohort 2 1996 Yaquina, OR PW Sound, AK Cohort 3 1997 Westcott, WA Cohort 4 1997 Sequim, WA Cohort 6 1998 Yaquina, OR Cohort 13 2002 Yaquina, OR Dabob, WA K1 2008 Quarantine 1st Generation Cohort 5 1998 Yaquina, OR Totten, WA Cohort 7 1999 Yaquina, OR Tomales, CA Cohort 8 1999 Westcott, WA PW Sound, AK Cohort 9 2000 Totten, WA Cohort 11 2001 PW Sound, AK J2 2007 2008 Yaquina 2nd Generation Cohort 10 2000 Totten, WA Cohort 15 2003 Yaquina, OR Cohort 16 2003 Westcott, WA Willapa, WA Cohort 14 2002 Yaquina, OR Totten, WA Westcott, WA 3rd Generation Pipestem line P4 2008 Yaquina Cohort 18 2005 Yaquina, OR Cohort 19 2005 Yaquina, OR Dabob, WA Cohort 20 2006 Yaquina, OR Thorndyke, WA Peterson, AK Cohort 21 2006 Yaquina, OR Cohort 22 (2009?) Yaquina, OR Cohort 17 2004 Yaquina, OR 4th Generation

49. Realized heritability for yield = 0.46

50. Cohort 10 Cohort 14 Cohort 15 Cohort 16 Cohort 17 Control (100%) Yields of G2 MBP families compared to non-selected controls (controls consist of families derived from “wild” and industry non-selected broodstock) - Pipestem line 350% 300% 250% 200% % improvement compared with control 150% 100% 50% 0% Family h2rfor yield= 0.46 % change/gen = 16.7% Average control