Hatchery technology for pearl oyster production

Abstract

The successful development of hatchery technology for production of pearl oyster Pinctada fucata spat in 1981 at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (Alagarswami et al, 1983 a, b, c) is an important milestone in the progress of research and development of molluscan shelfish culture in India. This is evident from the fact that subsequently, similar developments have been achieved in the production of spat of the oyster Crassostrea madrasensis in 1982 (Nayar et al., 1984), green mussel Perna viridis (Rangarajan, 1983) and brown mussel P. indie a in 1983 (Appukuttan et al, 1984). These developments have resulted in the establishment of a moderate shellfish hatchery at Tuticorin which has become capable of mass production of spat of any of these marine bivalves with a certain degree of predictabilitly.