Credit: Yvonne Roessner (Germany)
The attached photos are from Germany on the farming of Mytilus edulis (blue mussel) in the Kiel Fjord (Western Baltic Sea, brackish water with approximately 15 PSU salinity).
Mussels are grown on longlines (100m long, 7.5m distant from each other, 10 m water depth). On the longlines mussel substrates (collector material during spatfall of mussels) and app. 4 months thereafter mussels are restocked in special mussel”socks” (net tubes with different mesh sizes) that contain young mussels with a size of 1-2cm. Mussels grow 18 month from larvae settlement until harvestable size (5 cm) in 1-4m water depth. Harvest season is from autumn until spring (September until April), when temperatures are low.
