Tag Archives: Maryland oyster industry

Maryland’s oyster harvest largest in 35 years

Bill Sieling, executive vice president of Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, attributes the excellent haul to both Mother Nature and the canniness of the Maryland oyster industry in putting available resources to their best use. “The combination of having the good substrate there for the young oysters to set upon and then having the oysters available in the area to produce the spawn which is what produces the spat set and therefore had a place to set and grow – and it’s as simple as that,” It takes three years for an oyster to grow to legal market size. This year’s harvest was the culmination of years of investment in the Bay’s oyster growing conditions, Sieling said. >click to read< 13:04

Maryland oyster industry may be forever altered by Coronavirus pandemic

The pandemic-impacted oyster season has been difficult for the industry in Maryland, causing farmers and watermen to rethink how they sell their product and changing how programs conduct oyster restoration. Robert Brown, waterman and oyster grower, has bottom oyster leases on the tributaries of the Potomac River. Brown, president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, said he sells the majority of his oysters to oyster packaging houses, which aren’t working at capacity because they can’t sell the oysters once they shuck them. Watermen are being hit hard in the pandemic, and it might be a few years before we get back to normal,,, >click to read< 08:36