Seafood CRC: Commercial production of all-female reproductively sterile triploid Giant Tiger prawns (Penaeus monodon): Assessing their commercial performance in ponds.

Funded Activity Summary

The Australian prawn industry needs a mechanism by which to confer genetic protection of seedstock with elite genotypes so that their commercial benefits can be made available to the entire domestic industry through the sale of elite seedstock for on-growing. To-date triploidy is the only available technology that is near commercialisation that provides a high level of genetic protection through reproductive sterility.

Triploidy has the added benefit of resulting in female populations, with females naturally growing larger than males. This attribute should provide further improvements on harvest yield beyond the performance provided from the elite genotypes alone. If this project demonstrates that total harvest yields are substantially improved through stocking triploids as predicted, triploid induction technologies will be of direct benefit to (and can be utilised by) the entire Australian industry as wild spawned females are also larger than males. This provides direct benefits to the industry independent of accessing the elite genotypes being produced by the four largest Australian prawn producers, providing immediate benefits for any Australian farm or hatchery producing seedstock.

Objectives:
1. To develop P. monodon triploid heat shock induction systems that allow all eggs spawned from any one female to be exposed to heat shock at the same time.
2. To determine the performance (growth, survival, reproductive sterility and sex ratio) of triploid P. monodon when reared at commercial farms in earthen ponds relative to that of normal diploids.
3. To develop commercially relevant P. monodon triploid induction protocols for the Australian industry that accommodate constraints such as a natural spawning cycle (e.g. not reversed light as with experimental stocks), proximity of heated water to spawning tanks and systems available to add heated water to apply the shock).
4. To transfer commercially relevant triploid induction technologies to one or more commercial hatchery.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-08-2008

End Date: 30-06-2010

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $124,250.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Aquaculture | Husbandry | Reproduction | Stakeholder

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