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A workshop on hurricane preparation and recovery for oyster growers was held Wednesday, July 31 in Franklin and Wakulla Counties by the UF/IFAS Shellfish Aquaculture Program. Presentations on oyster gear management, storm plans, and best management practices for shellfish gear are provided below. A program to provide tags to identify and mark oyster gear was introduced. Commercially available, durable marker tags will be made available to oyster growers with 2018-19 aquaculture certifications in Bay, Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla Counties. Growers may choose from 3 tag options. The number of tags received will depend on the number of growers who participate

A workshop on financial assistance programs for oyster growers in the Panhandle is being hosted by the UF/IFAS Shellfish Aquaculture Extension Program. The workshop will be held on Thursday, August 15 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab, 3618 Coastal Highway 98, St. Teresa. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) is responsible for the delivery of federal farm programs to help producers manage risks and recover from disasters. The Noninsured Disaster Assistance Program, or NAP, provides financial assistance to growers of non-insurable crops to protect them against natural disasters that result

A workshop on hurricane preparation and recovery for oyster growers in the Panhandle is being hosted by the UF/IFAS Shellfish Aquaculture Extension Program. The workshop will be held on Wednesday, July 31 and is being offered at two times and locations – from 2:00 to 4:30 pm at the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab, 3618 Coastal Highway 98, St. Teresa, and from 6:00 to 8:30 pm at the Wakulla County Extension Office, 84 Cedar Avenue, Crawfordville.

To address interest in microalgae culture and techniques for molluscan shellfish hatcheries, a two-day workshop is being held on June 5-6, 2019 in Cedar Key. Dr. Gary Wikfors, Director of the NOAA Fisheries Laboratory in Milford, Connecticut, will lead presentations and hands-on demonstrations addressing the following topics: microalgae function, mass culture strategies, bivalve nutrition, chemical ecology of cultures, phytoplankton as bivalve foods, media preparation and aseptic transfers, and quantification methods. The workshop is co-hosted by Dr. Huiping Yang and Leslie Sturmer of the University of Florida/IFAS Molluscan Shellfish Aquaculture Program with funding provided through the NOAA National Sea Grant College Program.

The Microalgal Culture Workshop scheduled for January 30-31 in Cedar Key is postponed due to the continued shut-down of the federal government. Dr. Gary Wikfors, the guest speaker, is director of the NOAA Fisheries Laboratory in Milford, CT. He is a ‘non-essential’ federal government employee, who is currently not allowed to work. We hope to reschedule this workshop in the spring. Sorry for any inconvenience if you have made plans to travel to Cedar Key.

Risk in oyster farming, as in all agriculture and aquaculture production, is any event that a grower cannot control but affects the grower’s operation. However, various types of risk can be forecasted based on historical events and trends. A financial tool has been developed using these findings, which allows oyster growers to generate predictive costs and revenues for their farms and investment situation. This Calculator quantifies environmental and economic risks associated with oyster culture using damage reports, grower estimates, and historical data. Developed using Microsoft Excel 2018, the Calculator is compatible with previous Excel versions. First, growers enter their individual

After almost two years of operational problems, water quality monitoring stations at the Dog Island and Gulf Jackson Aquaculture Use Zones are up and running! Real-time information is available for both stations and can be viewed at the Online Resource Guide for Florida Shellfish Aquaculture website by visiting the LIVE Water Quality pages. In 2002-03, monitoring equipment was installed at these lease areas and seven others in six Florida counties with USDA funding. However, lack of continued funding resulted in most of the stations being dismantled. In 2012, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS), Division of Aquaculture and