Photos courtesy Lost Coast Oysters
Brian and Lindsay Rosegger hope that someday Terra Ceia oysters will have the same reputation for quality that long-time Floridians remember from their Apalachicola bivalves.
Owners of Lost Coast Oyster Company, they placed thousands of baby oysters in custom-designed pods off Terra Ceia in October. If all goes as planned, they’ll be available in St. Petersburg restaurants by summer with production ramping up to 200,000 oysters per year by 2021.
“It was the perfect storm,” says Brian. “St. Petersburg is a hot spot for high-quality, locally grown food, the wild harvest of oysters is collapsing, and oysters are a very sustainable food source.” Not to mention, oysters on the half-shell are one of the hottest food trends in the country.
Their oyster farm is not your typical oyster reef though. To start, it’s the first-ever full-column oyster lease in Tampa Bay. Rather than a reef on the bay bottom, oysters are grown in baskets that float on the surface where oysters have access to more nutrients. “The oysters can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day so they’re actually improving water quality,” Lindsay said.
Secondly, they’re triploid oysters that have an extra set of chromosomes. Triploid oysters are sterile, which means they grow faster and don’t use their energy to reproduce.
“That’s a major reason that people don’t traditionally eat oysters in months without an “R,” Lindsay explains. “They spawn as it gets warmer so they’re smaller and less tasty then because most of their energy is going toward reproducing.”
The floating reefs are hybrid versions of an Australian system that anchors a series of baskets on the water’s surface. The oysters start out as fingernail-sized spat that grow into three-inch oysters remarkably quickly.
But like goldfish, they only grow as fast as their environment allows and the Roseggers frequently check the growth and densities of the oysters, transplanting them every few weeks into baskets with larger-sized openings, allowing more water — and nutrients — to flow through.
The first 60,000 juvenile oysters were stocked into baskets with 4-millimeter mesh holes on Oct. 12; they’ve already been moved to baskets with 9 mm mesh and will be moved into larger quarters with 14 mm mesh before they’re harvested in April or May.
And while the Roseggers filed five applications over a two-year period to get approval on what was then considered an innovative use of a submerged land lease, they’re looking forward to competition from other oyster farmers.
“We see this as an opportunity to highlight how new technology can help people continue their way of life even as the world changes around them,” said Brian, who started his career evaluating habitats after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
“It’s a win-win for everyone involved. People who love oysters have a local, sustainable source and water quality in Tampa Bay improves,” Lindsay said.
Back to the Future?
Historical reports show harvests of more than 300,000 pounds of oysters from Tampa Bay in the late 1800s. By the 1970s, unchecked sewage contaminated the oyster reefs so they were deemed unfit for human consumption.
More recently, portions of Boca Ciega Bay and Lower Tampa Bay were classified as “conditionally approved” by the Florida Department of Agriculture, which allows oyster harvesting south of the main shipping channel.
The conditional status is reconsidered when high levels of rainfall predict potentially high levels of bacteria. They’re reopened after water samples demonstrate that stringent water quality criteria have been met.
Oyster bars also are being planted in other areas of Tampa Bay to protect against erosion and potentially improve water quality.