Researchers led by Prof. YU Ziniu from the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators cultivated a new breed of Kumamoto oyster "Hua Hai No.1", which may provide a new choice for oyster farming in China.

The cultivation of the new breed was started in 2012 with wild individuals from Zhanjiang, Guangdong province as the founding population. Then it subjected to consecutive selective breeding for four generations under 10% of retention rate and 1.755 of selection intensity, in combination with molecular assisted breeding technology.

Under the same or similar farming environment, the new breed's performances are significantly improved with better growth rate, which is indicated by shell height and the whole weight, as well as higher yields compared with the control group in the field trial.

Additionally, the appearance uniformity of this breed is greater than 90%. Market size of the new breed could be reached with half year less than unselected oyster.

The new breed is suitable to grow in middle-high salinity sea area along the coast waters of Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian provinces.

New breed of Kumamoto oyster "Huahai 1" (Image by ZHANG Yuehuan)