Every year our BLAST Interns go on a Dig In, during which they travel around New England and learn about many different parts of our food system. This entry recounts part of this year’s trip.

On July 14, 2006, the last day of the Dig In, BLAST took a trip down to The Pemaquid River to learn about the Pemaquid Oyster Company. It was there where B.L.A.S.T. learned how oysters are spawn (are conceived), raised, and then harvested. The Pemaquid Oyster Company works in partnership to The Darling Center. The Darling Center is where all the oysters are raised.

First they make the adult oysters “get jiggy with it” by sending electric pulses through the water that simulates the oysters, causing them to release sperm and eggs. To prevent oyster reefs (a massive clump of oysters) The Darling Centers places the fertilized eggs in a tank with small shells about the size that the baby oysters will be so they can only clamp onto one.

As the oysters grow in the darling center students feed them. Once they are ready, they are taken out of their lab and brought to a nursery by the riverbank, which is like a net cage. After they are fully developed, the oysters are brought down to the river bottom. Once the time is right and the are done growing they are sorted into two categories, Regular and jumbo. The regular ones go the restaurants in the northeast and the jumbo oysters are brought to Toronto. The BLAST interns got a trip on the river and the lab to see all this and two interns fell into the river. It was fun.