OYSTERS ON TRAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 250, 22 October 1928, Page 5

OYSTERS ON TRAYS.

EXPERIMENTS AT KAIPARA.

GOOD RESULTS ACHIEVED.

LONGER \ SPATTING SEASON.

Oysters on the plate are fairly well known to Auclclanders, but oysters on trays are something new, and up in Kaipara Harbour a very successful experiment lias taken place.

"We liave been seeing what can be done in regard to tray cultivation of oysters," said Mr. A. E. Hefford, Chief Inspector of Fisheries, this morning.

Mr. HefTord has returned from an extended visit to the oyster beds in Kaipara Harbour. He said that late last season tray cultivation was started on the foreshore of the native reserve between Batley and Palii, and during the present season the work had been proceeded with on a much bigger scale. It had been found that the oyster spat was largely carried in the direction of high water mark where the resultant oysters did not thrive as readily as those near low water mark. Tray cultivation meant the shifting of oysters to nearer low water mark, and it had been definitely established that on a tray an oyster grew to marketable size in a year.

Mr. HefTord said that it had been a very interesting experiment, and one that should go a lonpr way in the direction of increasing the oyster crop in the Auckland province. Tt was similar to the work which had been carried out on commercial lines in New South Wales, where the process was to catch the oyster spat on stakes and when the oysters formed to transfer them to tray where they would be swept by both the flood and ebhing tides.

Mr. HefTord said that the Kaipara, Harbour was ideal for the propagation of oysters, that the temperature of the water was suitable and there was a longer spatting: season compared with other portions of the Northland coast. This season the trav svstem had also been instituted at the Bar of Tslnnds, but was yet too earlv to sav what the ultimate results would lie. He thought that the Mannkan Harbour would also be suitable for intensive farm ill? of ovsters. but. no definite oninion conld be expressed until systematic investijration was pinde.