COASTAL RCPP Project

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Participating producers Steve Frost of Frost Seafood (left) and Chris Carroll of Laughing Gull Oyster Farm (left center) at their farms in Barnegat Light during summer sampling sessions alongside Kristin Adams, OCSCD/NRCS (right middle) and Riley Blankenship, CACD/NRCS (right).

The COASTAL RCPP Project has officially begun with conservation practice implementation underway. Through this USDA-NRCS funded partner-driven project, nine participating aquaculture producers have acquired disease resistant, diploid oyster spat on shell (juvenile oysters that have “set” on recycled shell material) and have moved it onto their in-water farm lease to begin the grow-out process.

Riley Blankenship, CACD/NRCS (left) and Sean Yeats, OCSCD (right) assist Kristin Adams, OCSCD/NRCS (center) with spat counts in Barnegat Light.

Part of the practice certification process includes sampling the oyster spat on shell for survivability and size. Summer sampling sessions began in July that involves processing a subsample of spat on shell from each producer and recording the number of live oysters and average size live oyster. This information will help inform the project regarding the quantity of live oysters the producers started with in comparison to data collected during fall sampling sessions at the end of the growing season in November. 

For more information about the NJ COASTAL Project, visit OCSCD’s COASTAL webpage.