The large coloured floats marking mussel cultivations can be seen all long the Trieste coastline and in Muggia Bay. The mussel farms, “pedocere” in the local dialect, are situated in a stretch of sea granted as an aquaculture concession and marked out with special lighted buoys. The mussels are grown in relatively shallow stretches of sea (up to 15 metres deep) containing a high proportion of nutrients and in areas that are usually close to river mouths, where tidal variations are minimal but constant. The mussels are cultivated on a series of parallel strips consisting of long surface headlines (“ventia”) running taut from buoy to buoy and anchored to the seabed with two heavy weights. From these headlines lying just below the water surface hang the droppers (“reste”), long mesh tubes on which the seeded mussels grow to marketable size.