| The French oyster farming industry relies almost exclusively on juveniles collected from the natural environment; the supply of spat produced by hatcheries is low, about 10% of the industry's requirements. Development through selective breeding of oyster stocks which are better suited for aquaculture purposes, is likely to reverse this tendency since only hatcheries will be able to supply such animals. Scallop farming, which at present is poorly developed in France, relies exclusively on hatchery produced spat. Although hatchery technology is constantly being improved, significant production problems remain which must be solved before hatcheries become a major supplier of juveniles for the industry. This paper describes the present state of hatchery... |
