Wednesday, March 30, 2016

30/03/2016: Channel catfish: An overview of nutritional requirements

https://issuu.com/international_aquafeed/docs/iaf1601_w1/44
by Herbert E Quintero, PhD, Aquaculture/Fisheries Centre, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, USA

First published in International Aquafeed, January-February 2016


The catfish industry is one of the largest and best developed aquaculture segments in the United States. Commercial production of channel catfish started developing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and since then feed formulation for catfish started to be tested (Hastings and Dupree, 1969).

The main objective of providing minimal quantities of nutrients has not changed since those earlier studies, but the need for increasing production and optimizing resources has changed. Initially, channel catfish were raised in ponds at low stocking densities and fed low-cost, incomplete diets.

That trend changed by introducing nutritional balanced diets that were developed based on the determination of nutrient requirements of this species starting in the early 1970s (Lovell, 1977). US catfish production increased rapidly from the early 1980s until 2003 when it reached 662 million pounds of catfish processed representing more than half of total aquaculture production.

However that trend shifted and started declining with 300 million pounds of catfish processed in 2012, which represents approximately 55 percent decrease since 2003 (USDA, 2004, Hanson & Sites, 2013).

In recent years, the industry has been striving to develop technological solutions to improve production, including implementing hybridization programs, and intensifying production with the introduction of new technologies such as  the split-pond system and the in-pond raceway system, both of them variations of the partitioned aquaculture system (Brown & Tucker, 2013; Brown et al. 2014).

Read the full article in International Aquafeed HERE.  
 

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