The Cawthron Institute has won $14.8 million from the Government to look at expanding the aquaculture industry into higher value species such as scallops and flat oysters.
The Nelson institute has been involved in shellfish aquaculture for many years and has been given the funding over five yearsby the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
Cawthron chief executive Gillian Wratt said the money would be used to continue work on a programme of selective breeding and supply to farmers, plus look at the possibility of farming other higher value species such as scallops and flat oysters.
Shellfish aquaculture contributed about $256 million a year to the economy and was based largely on green shelled mussels, for which spat (baby mussels) were harvested from the wild.
"That's the equivalent to going back several hundreds of years or maybe even more than that in land cropping, thinking that you pick your seeds from the wild and then plant your crop."
Ms Wratt said the institute was already supplying material commercially to oyster farmers and was talking with mussel industry partners about the possibility of a commercial hatchery.
"The advantages of that are that you've got reliability of supply, you've got better uniformity in your production and in your quality ... we haven't yet but we could be breeding for specific end user requirements."
Farmers who tried the selectively bred spat experienced a 20 per cent rise in productivity in one generation, she said.
Crop & Food Research and Victoria University will be partners in the project.
