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| Mussels |
The Black Sea is a good environment to farm shellfish and just a few kilometres off the lush subtropical coast of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, Georgia's first-ever crop of farmed mussels is being harvested.
"Our farm occupies a half hectare of the open sea and consists of six long lines floating on the water. Each line is over 100 metres long, and the droppers, which the mussels grow on, hang down every metre and a half," says mussel farm consultant, Revaz Diasamidze.
Farming in the open sea, where food for the mussels is plentiful and the water highly oxygenated, means the mussels grow faster. But the long lines are exposed to the strong currents and storms of the Black Sea, so the farmers are also experimenting with Spanish techniques, which hang the droppers from a single platform.