Nursery
Following the larval culture period, scallops are placed in a land-based, flow through nursery system supplied with seawater pumped from the Wachapreague Channel. During the land-based nursery phase, bag filters are used on all inflows to reduce sediment loads and to exclude larvae of other invertebrates that would otherwise settle in the system.
Juvenile scallops are reared in the land-based system about 4 to 6 weeks. Once the scallops are large enough to be retained within a 2 mm mesh, they are transferred to spat bags and placed in surface floating cages at a field-based nursery located near Wachapreague Inlet, VA.