MUSSELS: HOW TO FORAGE OR FARM THEM

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The technique of "raft ranching" is a simple one. You merely anchor your structure in a bay or cove which already has a mussel population, and encourage the spawn to grow on ropes suspended from the float. Most farmers use wooden platforms or old rubber tires buoyed with foam (or some other flotation material). It could be a bit expensive to construct a raft from scratch, but you can often buy old floats or docks at reasonable prices. ( You can even use a few tied-together logs, but such assemblies usually sink after a year or two.)

The exact methods of operating a mussel-raising raft differ a lot from coast to coast, and even from one bay to the next. In general, the platforms are placed in waters which have only light currents and are between 30 and 60 feet deep. Nylon or Manila ropes are then spaced some 30 inches apart and allowed to hang 10 to 30 feet down into the water . . . with four-inch-long sticks ( lengths of half-inch-diameter dowel will do) placed every two feet or so to keep the mussels from sliding off the lines.

(The only way to find out exactly what depth and cord spacing will work best is to experiment . . . unless you can find another — successful — mussel farmer in the same cove and copy his or her system.)

CATCHING THE SPAT

As you might well imagine, getting the mussels to settle on your ropes is sometimes tricky. The "spat", as mussel spawn is called, is produced in the late spring. It will attach to almost any substrate it can find, but if your ropes are set out too soon, other creatures ( such as barnacles) may take up the space. On the other hand, if you wait too long to position your lines, there may not be enough spawn to give you a good harvest. The spat usually begins in early May, and your crop — if you get one — will become apparent by the end of July.

The spat sets best in the upper two or three meters of water, so you can either plan to thin the mussels and reposition some of them along the length of the rope (a lot of work), or simply run the rope — horizontally — in the top layers of water during the setting season. In Spain, where the accumulation of great numbers of mussels often makes thinning necessary, the outer layers of shellfish are routinely stripped off and attached to new ropes with water-soluble rayon . . . which will rot away as the mussels form webs of their own.

(Any thinning or transplanting should be done on overcast days, since bright sunshine hinders the byssus growth ... and, even though mussels are generally thought to favor water with a high light intensity, experiments have shown that their weight gain can be increased by as much as 69% by placing sun screens over the timber framework from which the ropes are suspended.)

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