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Submitted to: Aquaculture Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: 12/15/2012 Publication Date: 1/23/2013 Citation: Chatakondi, N.G. 2013. Recent improvements in channel x blue hybrid catfish fry production facilitates higher production and adoption in the catfish industry. Aquaculture Conference Proceedings. P. 8. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: Channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus – a leading aquaculture species in United States for past several years has declining production trends, largely due to higher cost of inputs, inefficiencies in production, and competition from lower-priced imports. With the interest of increasing the efficiency of catfish aquaculture production, channel catfish females have been crossed with blue catfish males to produce a channel x blue hybrid catfish. Hybrid catfish have higher growth rates, survival and processing yield than commonly raised channel catfish. Presently, an increasing number of catfish farmers are raising hybrid catfish in production ponds to harness the superiority of hybrid catfish. Hybrid fry production is a hormone-based synchronization protocol consisting of collecting eggs from strippable, induced channel catfish females, fertilizing them with blue catfish sperm and incubating the fertilized eggs in hatching troughs to hatch fry. Hatchery production of hybrid fry has been a major bottle neck in the adoption of this superior genotype in the catfish industry. Considerable research has been conducted on the hybrid catfish over the past 30 years, mostly to identify and quantify the superior characteristics of the fish. Hybrid fry production has increased from 30 million (2007) to 150 million (2012) in commercial catfish hatcheries and recent improvements in broodfish preparation, maturation predictors, hormone-induced spawning methods, optimizing hatchery conditions to improve hatchery production of hybrid catfish fry will be discussed. |
