Covers bivalve biology as it bears on production, broodstock conditioning and spawning, larval rearing, settlement and nursery culture, grow-out methods, and harvest and handling.
Larval rearing receives the greatest attention because it is where production most often fails. Survival of a few percent is normal and survival of zero occurs, frequently without an obvious cause. Intake water chemistry is treated in detail: regional hatcheries have experienced crop failures that track periods of low pH in the water drawn, and the operational decisions — when to buffer, when to close the intake and wait — are live questions rather than settled practice.
Selective breeding for tolerance is covered, together with the questions it raises about genetic diversity in wild populations.