Rhode Island: The Oyster State

Whether you’re a die-hard oyster connoisseur or you just partake in the occasional slurp, you’ve probably found yourself around a platter of shucked, ice-cold oysters. Every day, hundreds of people around Rhode Island top off the briny goodness with a dollop of cocktail sauce and a squeeze of lemon, relishing the sweetness of shellfish in the Ocean State. However, as individuals enjoy a periodic delicacy, most of us rarely think about the year-round process that goes into farming the best-quality oysters.

With over 50 oyster farms in our small state, a sense of community has been formed around the profession. While farming techniques differ, the goal is the same: to produce the best-tasting oysters using environmentally friendly methods that protect and improve the conditions of local waters.

Rhode Island is a unique state for oyster farming, and harvests some of the best in the business.

“Rhode Island has a natural beauty and unique location that is perfectly conducive to producing the best oysters anywhere,” says Frank Mullin, co-founder of the Ocean State Oyster Festival. “The open Bay, the inlets, and Ninigret’s open breachway, for example, provide the perfect ebb and flow for growing bivalves … we are very proud to be having our 10th festival celebrating all that this fall.”

SALT POND OYSTERS

One of the driving forces promoting the local oyster farming industry is Dave Roebuck, the owner of Salt Pond Oysters in Point Judith Pond. In addition to being the owner of and primary farmer at Salt Pond, he worked alongside Mullin to plan the inaugural Ocean State Oyster Fest in 2015. Salt Pond Oysters is one of five oyster farms in the South Kingstown salt pond.

Roebuck has what he calls a pontoon upweller, an invention he and his brother Greg worked on in the early 2000s. He explains this mobile contraption is a hybrid between a normal dock nursery system and a large-scale paddle wheel nursery system. It holds several million oyster seeds that can also grow to a larger size than in a typical system. They sell oyster seed to farms from New Jersey to New Hampshire, allowing them to make a profit to help sustain their business. Many farms have smaller and simpler upwellers, but in general the units allow farmers to grow oyster seed in a more controlled environment before transferring them to join the other oysters in the farm once they reach a certain size.

When asked what sets their oysters apart, Roebuck explains that they plant oysters directly on the bottom of the salt pond as opposed to using the classic mesh cages, also known as bottom culturing. With this method, organisms don’t become stuck to the oysters or the mesh bags, producing a clean, pearly white oyster. When it comes time to retrieve their oysters, they use a bull rake and more recently, they have been scuba diving to harvest them.