Federal Grant Will Support New Aquaculture Specialist at Local Lab

CAPE MAY – The New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium/New Jersey Sea Grant and Rutgers University’s Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory recently received funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Sea Grant Program to support an aquaculture extension agent with shellfish expertise. The three-year, $300,000 grant will fund a New Jersey Sea Grant extension agent to support ongoing studies in oyster aquaculture being conducted at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory (HSRL).
Funding for this new position was secured through a collaborative proposal prepared by Peter Rowe, director of extension and research for the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium/New Jersey Sea Grant (NJMSC/NJSG) and John Kraeuter, associate director at HSRL, and obtained through the highly-selective 2010 Sea Grant Extension Technology Transfer Competition.
“NJMSC/NJSG is pleased to partner with HSRL on this grant that will support an aquaculture extension agent dedicated to the shellfish industry in southern New Jersey,” noted Dr. Rowe. We look forward to transferring research results and products to the oystermen in order to revitalize a historically important industry on the Delaware Bay .”
By the end of the 3-year funding period that the grant will cover, the new agent will develop materials for technical and non technical audiences on the various aspects of rack and bag, cage culture and shell planting, including comparison of yield for diploid and triploid disease resistant oyster strains and control of Vibrio. In addition, the agent will promote extension efforts involving multiple partners in industry, academia, local, county, state and regional agencies and other Sea Grant programs.
Close to 190 licensed aquaculturists and four commercial shellfish hatcheries exist in the state. Recent advances in oyster and hard clam aquaculture in New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic region, as well as the establishment of school-based outreach program, are building blocks for an integrated extension program in southern New Jersey.
“This federal funding is critically important and will strengthen aquaculture efforts primarily in southern New Jersey,” said John Kraeuter. “The Delaware Bay oyster aquaculture efforts were severely impacted by the loss of a highly effective Sea Grant aquaculture agent three years ago, so this is an important reinvestment for the state and region.”
Programs in hard clam culture along New Jersey’s Atlantic Coast, including Raritan Bay, are adequately covered by a Rutgers Cooperative Extension agent but the Delaware Bay has lacked the ongoing scientific resources, as well as the information and outreach, of an aquaculture agent.
The new aquaculture agent, who will administratively be a program coordinator in the statewide Rutgers Cooperative Extension structure, is expected to be hired sometime this fall and will be based at the HSRL facility in Cape May, NJ.
The Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory operates four facilities in southern New Jersey. The Bivalve Laboratory is located in Port Norris, Cumberland County. Three facilities are in Cape May County. The Cape Shore Laboratory is located in Green Creek and the Multi-Species Aquaculture Demonstration Facility (MADF) Laboratory is in North Cape May on the Cape May-Delaware Bay Canal. The MADF Administrative Offices are located in the city of Cape May.