Stimulating investment in pearl farming in ... - World Fish Center

Figure 15. Growth trajectories for oysters of different sizes a) entering intermediateculture and b) placed on droppers for grow-out.Extrapolation suggests that spat will take five to eight months to reach 65 mm fromrealistic spat starting sizes of 10-30 mm, followed by a further five months to reach100 mm.Growth rates of young oysters in Solomon Islands compares favourably with otherlocations. For example in Takapoto Lagoon in French Polynesia, 40-50 mm juvenilesgrew 30 mm in six months (Coeroli et al., 1984; Lintihac, 1987) and in the CookIslands, 10 mm spat grew 16.4 mm in three months (Braley, 1997).Survival of spat through intermediate culture was shown in section 3 to beapproximately 70-90%, though some batches experienced lower survival. Survival ofjuveniles is much higher. Of a batch of 2000 young oysters hung on dropper lines aschaplets at the WorldFish research centre in 2000, 5.8% were lost after ~sevenmonths. Most losses were associated with shells breaking off the chaplets; less than1% were found dead on the chaplets.18