Beyond the Roast
South Carolina's largest oyster farm has broken ground on a new 6.4 million dollar expansion project in the ACE Basin. It is to be completed by the end of April of this year.
As we turn off Hwy.17, there’s a slight chill in the air as the mist of early morning begins to lift.
South Carolina’s Largest Oyster Farm
Today will be an adventure into the lives of the watermen of the ACE Basin and the State’s largest oyster farm, located at the end of Bennet’s Point. Massive live oaks shrouded in Spanish moss form a canopy to the river’s edge. Lowcountry Oyster Company, founded in 2017, has grown rapidly and has already broken ground on a new 6.4 million dollar expansion project to be completed by the end of April of this year.
Steeped in cultural history and natural resources, the ACE Basin is a 350,000-acre wetland ecosystem located at the confluence of the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers. These three rivers join at St. Helena Sound, forming one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the East Coast. Many rare and protected species make their home in the ACE Basin, including short-nosed sturgeon, wood storks, loggerhead sea turtles, horseshoe crabs, and bald eagles.
Fortunately, the ACE Basin is a protected ecosystem that encompasses the National Wildlife Refuge. Its natural beauty will never be harmed by the urbanization and development creeping up along the waterfront in other parts of the state like Georgetown, McClellanville and Charleston. Once the trees give way to the expanse of the ACE Basin, outriggers and nets of large shrimp trawlers begin to appear in the distance. This is one of the last remaining outposts for the state’s shrimping business.
Mosquito Creek is the gateway to the Lowcountry Oyster Farm’s floating farm. I know we have arrived when I see the flash of farm hands in their orange suits running through the mist to grab sacks of oysters to take to the farm’s processing shed.
Above us, flying in the wind is a flag bearing LOC’s renowned logo, a skeleton replication of founder and owner Trey McMillan. McMillan is South Carolina’s State Representative for the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association (ECSGA). Born and raised on a working waterfront in Charleston, SC, he grew up fishing, shrimping, and crabbing. He is a professional fisherman turned oyster farmer with a successful career as a professional sport-fishing captain. During a trip to the Chesapeake in 2015, he had the chance to tour an oyster farm and was immediately fascinated with what he saw.
Recently his company recently broke ground on a facility that will expand the company’s production by 300 percent and bring at least 30 new jobs to the region. New machines will allow them to go from processing 5,000 oysters to 20,000 oysters an hour. Production will be great enough to increase its sales and expand distribution nationwide.
Currently, the company harvests millions of oysters each year.
Our Tour
The ACE Basin is a healthy, protected ecosystem that provides the quintessential makings of a successful oyster farm.
JB Borgstedt is LOC’s resident ecological tour guide. “I’ve worked on the water in all kinds of capacities, from commercial fishing to tugboats, to dredging,” he says. While living in Australia, he discovered pearling, or the harvesting and farming of pearls and pearl shells from oysters.
Their On-land Nursery and Processing Facility
“ Being on the water all the time gave me a passion for learning and teaching how an animal, like an oyster, is the direct product of its environment,” said Borgstedt. He pointed to a nearby building, “This is our on-land nursery and processing facility.” We purchase seed from Cherrystone Farm in Virginia. That takes the pressure off of wild-grown oyster stock and allows the wild stock in these waters the opportunity to repopulate.
How Long Does It Take for an Oyster to Mature?
The oyster spat is received in late spring and is between 3mm and 4 mm in size, roughly the size of coffee grounds. We keep the oyster spat here in our land-based nursery system, where nutrient-rich water is pumped from the Ashepoo River to facilitate their feeding and growth. After 6 weeks, the oyster spat is large enough to be placed in mesh bags and introduced to the floating farm. At that point, the oysters are cared for by LOC’s farm team, and frequently tumbled, sorted by size, and rebagged several times throughout their 1-year lifetime.”
“The wild oysters work as a reef system to protect against salt marsh erosion and help stabilize our shoreline,” JB explains. “Plus, they create a valuable ecosystem where over 120 different fish species come to feed.”
While oyster harvesting has existed in South Carolina for thousands of years, top-culture aquaculture has only been in existence since 2013.
McMillan has custom-fabricated six-bag oyster cages, which he is working on selling to area farms. Currently, the farm has over several thousand cages spread amongst its lease site.
If you care to see this firsthand, LOC is running weekly tours to provide oyster lovers the opportunity to see how their renowned Lowcountry Cups are grown and experience the magic of the ACE Basin.
Resources
www.seafoodsource.com
lowcooysters.com/pages/farm-tours
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