David Floyd's World of Oysters
You've heard “the world is your oyster,” but for IAA student David Floyd, the oyster was his world this summer. Growing up in Cambridge, Maryland, Floyd comes from an agricultural and commercial fishing background, so he naturally gravitated toward majoring in Agricultural Business Management.
IAA students are required to complete a 320-hour internship in their concentration area. Combining his two passions — fishing and farming — Floyd interned at Horn Point Laboratory and Oyster Hatchery in Cambridge, MD. Throughout the summer, among other tasks, he cleaned tanks holding adult and juvenile oysters, also known as spat. He counted and collected spat, and spread seed oysters for production. Floyd was happy that some tasks required him to be out on the water.
He especially enjoyed doing a triploid spawn. “A triploid is hybrid oyster that can only be created with human assistance,” explains Floyd. “Triploids are sterile and grow faster because they do not have to use energy on reproduction. This is desired by growers because they can get a marketable oyster in a shorter amount of time.”
Doing a triploid spawn requires a planting boat, the Robert Lee. Floyd describes the process, “The boat takes our spat on shell and puts them onto oyster bars in the Bay. The day started at 5 a.m. because that is when they start loading the boat. I was responsible for getting 30 shells from each tank to be taken back to the hatchery to count the spat on them. After 10 tanks were loaded the boat was ready to go. We left at 8 a.m. and drove two and a half hours to a creek in Talbot County. The Robert Lee has a fire hose on it that the captain uses to spray the shells into the water in areas predetermined to plant in.”
“The trip was interesting because I got to see what happens after our job is done,” adds Floyd. “I also got to see a lot of watermen out crabbing who we are helping by planting oysters for them to harvest in the winters to come.”
In addition to learning about oysters, Floyd says he gained team building and management skills. Admittedly, his summer world was filled with oysters, but Floyd says he is appreciative to have been introduced to a different part of Maryland’s seafood industry.
