Hello my friend, to continue our video series on aquaculture, we will visit New Zealand to check out a mussel
farm in a calm water region. Mussels are a popular choice for aquaculture because they are easy to farm and delicious to eat! Here they produce billions of mussels every year. It is considered more productive than land-based
farms for sheep or goats! In today's video, I will show you all the
details about their mussel farming process. Now let's watch! Let me tell you about the first step of mussel farming To farm mussels, they start off with the baby
mussel, which called spat. They are about the size of a grain of sand. They get either caught in the wild, or breeded in a hatchery with warm water and the right lighting. The warm water helps to stimulate their mating
and reproductive processes, which can be tougher for them in nature Check it out! These are spats under the microscope. After that, the mussel spats will be kept in these bubbly tanks. And wanna know what they eat at this stage? It's this cool green liquid! Can you guess what that is? The answer is microalgae This type of feed is perfect for mussels, both in the hatchery and in the wild. The spats will stay here for a few weeks, before they are sifted and moved to an outdoor farm. Here, they will grow to be about 2.5 to 3cm before being taken out to the ocean. These little mussels have reached the perfect
size and are now ready for the next step The mussels are stuffed into the net like this, then it's called "socking" They are hung on ropes and anchored with floating
buoys on surface of the ocean. This is called the the long-line system At the sea-surface, the backbone usually extends across about 110 meters and carries the ‘dropper ropes’ Let's take a moment to watch this Depending on the water depth, each rope can be up to 20 meters long, and the backbone can carry a total of 2.5 to 3.5 km of droppers. Mussels also help clean the water. They are filter-feeders, which means that
they feed by collecting tiny organisms from the water. This means that they do not need any additional feed or fertilizers to grow After about 12 months, when they reach about
10 cm in size, we can harvest them. Let's follow this beautiful process! Once harvested, the mussels will be brought to the processing plant Here they are processed in different ways
depending on their characteristics and the demand
In New Zealand, besides exporting fresh and steamed mussels they even make protein powder
This is the process of making protein powder from mussels Mussels are not only delicious but also packed
with nutrients such as protein and poly-unsaturated fatty acids. They are low in cholesterol, saturated fats, and trans-fats, making them a great addition to a healthy
diet and good for heart health Now, let's see how mussels are packaged for export New Zealand is one of the largest exporters of mussels in the world. In 2022, they earned $52 million in export
revenue from greenshell mussels The production of mussels doesn't have a big
impact on the environment, and the industry's carbon and freshwater footprints
are small compared to other protein crops. What's more, mussel farms even provide habitats
for other species to thrive, making them a sustainable choice for aquaculture. Now we've come to an end of the video today I hope you enjoyed and learned something new about mussel farming technique. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell
icon to get notified of my latest videos. Thank you for watching and goodbye!
