Dredge modern9/24/2023 ![]() Wild-harvested oysters tend to grow in clumps, or “cultches,” and can come in any sort of shape and size. ![]() They feed on the algae that naturally flows with the currents, just like oysters in the wild. Unlike farm-raised fish, which grow in enclosed pens with processed feed, oysters grow in cages in open water, either floating on the surface or sitting on the bottom of coves and creeks. This educated oyster uses the energy it doesn’t waste producing eggs or sperm to grow to the three-inch harvestable size faster than natural oysters – in as little as 18 – 24 months, as opposed to at least three years for the natural oyster. ![]() That means it doesn’t go into the annual cycle of transforming itself to produce gametes. The thought of eating a spawning oyster packed with gametes is as distasteful as is its taste and texture: acidic and watery.įarm-raised oysters have been modified so that their cells contain not two, but three sets of chromosomes, which results in an oyster that doesn’t procreate. It becomes less opaque and more translucent. Most of its energy goes into producing gametes – eggs or sperm. If you look at the eastern oyster’s life cycle, as the water temperature rises, the oyster’s body begins to change as it prepares to spawn. ![]() These oysters, like humans, are diploid, in other words, each of their cells contains two sets of chromosomes, one from each parent. Farm-raised oysters, on the other hand, are plump and delicious to eat every month of the year.Īll the oysters in the Chesapeake Bay – in fact, all the oysters growing all along the East Coast and around into the Gulf of Mexico, are the same species: the eastern oyster, or Crassostrea virginica. In Maryland and Virginia, watermen can legally harvest oysters in the wild generally between October and March, so that old adage holds true for those wild-caught oysters. ![]() You grew up with the notion that oysters were only edible in months with an “R” in them – September through April. ![]()
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