He’s one of a handful of growers Hunter Local Land Services say that others can learn from and to make it easier there are $5000 grants to cover upfront costs.

To qualify for an earlier round of grants Mr Diemar had to start with a comprehensive map of his oyster leases from his Soldiers Point base.

“We had to sit down and do a lease survey,” he said.

“To start with it helps the Department get a good idea of what each grower is up to and how they can best help us.”

Onto his map Mr Diemar began to add water quality measurements and rainfall figures.

“Pollution is our biggest challenge in terms of quality,” he said.

“We have a quality assurance program that guarantees our product.

“But since we’ve produced our environmental map we’ve established rainfall tolerances.”

With the tendency for boats to pump out diesel and even fecal laden bilge water after rain the risks to oysters are high.

“With the environmental map it means we have a very good idea what the pollution is going to be after rain so we can move the racks,” Mr Diemar said.

Hunter LLS has invited more farmers to apply for one of the $5000 grants as part of the 2016-17 Hunter Region Oyster Farm Profiles Incentives Program.

For details call Brian Hughes on 0428 293 021.