The Vineyard’s first offshore blue mussel farm has a new owner with a long-term vision for the local fishing industry. Stanley Larsen, owner of Menemsha Fish Market, recently took over a shellfish grant for the continued operation of the aquaculture farm.

Vineyard local restaurants began serving locally harvested blue mussels in July and the prospects for the future look even better. Alec Gale of the Menemsha Fish House said he was pleased with the results. The last of the locally harvested blue mussels were shipped this week but there may be more.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

The seafood consumer loves to eat blue mussels. It’s an internationally consumed product that lends itself very well to modern day aquaculture, including most likely here in Vineyard waters. Last Wednesday, a top mussel grower from Iceland, Vidir Bjornsson, of Nordurskel, came to speak and share pictures of his young blue mussel farm at the Chilmark Public Library. His one-hour talk was devoted to sharing his success, his struggles and his technique.

Sometime this summer, Vineyarders will have another opportunity to buy freshly-harvested blue mussels from Vineyard Sound. The forecast is even better for the year 2012, if all goes according to plan for Menemsha fishermen Alec Gale and Tim Broderick.

The two men have big plans. They have been working with the town of Chilmark, the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group and others on an experimental blue mussel farm off the north shore of the Vineyard.

With the future for aquaculture looking bright following a successful experiment in farming blue mussels this year, the Chilmark selectmen voted this week to award two Menemsha shellfishermen five acres of North Shore water to continue their work growing mussels.

Tim Broderick and Alec Gale harvested 1,900 pounds of blue mussels this summer in the experimental farm. Now they plan to set up ten 500-foot lines in Chilmark waters, where they hope to grow 10,000 pounds.

The Chilmark selectmen will award bottom grants next month for 15 acres of north shore water to shellfishermen who want to grow blue mussels in Vineyard Sound.

The selectmen will hold a public hearing on the grants on Oct. 5. The current site has been used for an experimental mussel program supported by the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, the Chilmark shellfish committee and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.

The Vineyard’s first offshore farm-raised blue mussels will be distributed among Island fish markets and a few restaurants this weekend. The shellfish are being grown as part of a federally and locally-funded offshore aquaculture experiment to bring farm-raised blue mussels to market on the Island.

The first blue mussels on the experimental offshore mussel farm in Vineyard waters will be harvested in the coming weeks. The mussels are large enough to go to market, according to Scott Lindell, an aquaculture specialist with the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory.

There are two small farms. One is north of Chilmark; the second is west of Noman’s Land. Two Island fishermen, Alec Gale of West Tisbury and Tim Broderick of Chilmark, are tending the farms with a 55-foot workboat, the Jane Lee, out of Menemsha.

The Vineyard’s first experimental blue mussel farm began operating in waters off Cape Higgon in Chilmark this past week.

Two weeks ago fishermen suspended a 500-foot cable 30 feet underwater in Vineyard Sound. Last week they hung lines on the cable that were loaded with juvenile blue mussels, held to the line by a biodegradable fabric called socks.

If the project is successful, by the end of next year the mussels will be marketable.

A bowl of steamed blue mussels is among the most valued culinary seafood dishes on the Island. Just about every restaurant that serves seafood offers the bivalve. But all of the mussels consumed on the Island comes from afar, nearly all from Canada. But in the years ahead the popular shellfish may be raised and harvested here.