Italy: FAO releases guide for the production of Japanese scallop

Scallop culture at a commercial scale lags that of clams and oysters in terms of number of operations and production volumes. The main reasons revolve around the natural free-swimming seabed bottom preference of scallops, their requirement for low-density culture, their sensitivity to seawater chemistry parameters and their short shelf life when sold live. These limiting factors translate into aquaculture challenges especially in large-scale farming or “grow-out” of market-size animals because of physical space demand, labour and cost. The Japanese scallop is one of the most attractive scallop culture candidate and offers several advantages: it generates a live and processed product, yields one of the largest scallop muscles highly prized as both a food and export product and more importantly, it attains market size in suspended cultures. The latter enables large-scale farming and harvesting, eliminates SCUBA-based labour as for bottom cultures, and allows for seed monitoring and harvesting of market-size scallops from a boat or raft. This manual describes well-tested hatchery- based techniques implemented at large-scale for all stages of seed production. It provides the potential to extend the hatchery cycle with a broodstock conditioning strategy, to rear and set pediveligers using different methodologies, to produce up to 10 mm seed on a large-scale in a land-based nursery and to achieve a 100 percent survival and growth for seed transported up to g hours to farm sites. This is a roadmap to the technical success for a commercial operation of the Japanese scallop. The financial sustainability of the operation will depend on a well-developed strategy, a sound business plan, a realistic target for production and on its management.

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