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South
Carolina greenhouse shrimp yields bountiful
harvest in small space
BLUFFTON --Anyone with a cast
net and a pole would be green with envy.
Two huge nets were hoisted,
bulging with gleaming shrimp. The catch
weighed nearly half a ton, and it was just
the beginning. State marine scientists harvested
4,000 pounds of bigger-than-large Pacific
whites Tuesday.
The shrimp wasn't pulled from
any of the acres of holding ponds spread
across Waddell Mariculture Center, but from
a modest greenhouse out back.
"Now that's a pretty
sight, every farmer's dream," said
Jeff Peterson, a Fernandina Beach, Fla.,
shrimp farmer who came to watch.
Four years into a climate-controlled
research project, S.C. Department of Natural
Resources biologists have produced 10 times
the density of a commercial shrimp farm
and doubled the size of the shrimp.
They think they're on the
verge of delivering the technology for a
homegrown product cost-effective enough
to supplement the seasonal wild shrimp catch
and help the state compete with cheaper,
farm-raised imports.
In a "raceway" channel
under the plastic of a greenhouse, shrimp
can be raised all year long and protected
from crop-ravaging diseases carried by birds
and other animals. Diseases have ruined
shrimp farms across the Lowcountry and around
the world.
Researchers think the markets
created by a year-round product would help
seasonal shrimpers get a better price for
the wild product. In the United States,
3 pounds of shrimp are eaten per person
per year, said Al Stokes, center manager.
More than 1 billion pounds per year are
imported.
"This crop wouldn't compete
with the local wild crop, but with the imports,"
he said. "We need to get (consumers)
off that import habit."
"I tend to be a Pollyanna
about this," said William Lacey, S.C.
Commerce department business solutions director.
"I think the work they've done here
is pioneering, world-class."
Crop by crop, DNR scientists
are learning how many shrimp-food pellets
to feed, how to balance the "microbial
community" in the water, its temperatures
and aeration, to grow more and bigger shrimp
in the same space. Oddly enough, the approach
is modeled on chicken farming.
The rich microbe stew is recycled
and reused instead of discharged. Farms
could be inland instead of having to continually
draw brackish water.
DNR marine scientist Craig
Browdy stared into channel murk bubbling
with shrimp and said, "This water is
like gold. It looks like gold and it really
is."
The goal is to get the production
cost below $2 per pound. Economic modeling
Browdy has done suggests the cost is now
between $2 and $2.50, but in a larger-scale
commercial operation it would be less.
Mills Rooks of Beaufort plans
to use DNR techniques when he starts his
own 20-acre operation in 2005. He hopes
to produce 3 million pounds per year. He
thinks he can get the production cost down
to $1.75 per pound or less.
The shrimp harvested Tuesday
were sold by sealed bid to Port Royal Seafood
for $1.90 per pound.
"Every time they ratchet
it up a few more thousand pounds per harvest,
it approaches commercial viability,"
said Peterson, who's considering a greenhouse
farm.
The Waddell center was on
a list of facilities that DNR officials
said earlier this year they might have to
close if state budget cuts continue. Stokes
said the operation has been cut back, but
federal grants are paying for half the staff
and for research in the shrimp project.
A handful of shrimp farmers
and investors who came to watch the harvest
pulled out cameras and began clicking, using
words such as "gorgeous" to describe
the shrimp. Jokes went back and forth about
who had coolers.
Browdy put it in perspective
for recreational shrimpers, who are limited
to a cooler, or about 40 pounds of shrimp,
per trip: A single toss of a 6-foot cast
net into the greenhouse raceway would have
pulled in 40 pounds. Tuesday's haul would
have filled 1,000 coolers
BY BO PETERSEN
Of The Post and Courier Staff
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