DUNN'S FISH FARMS, INC. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.7

Description

Our goal is to develop a new largemouth bass fingerling production system/strategy that will employ "out-of-season" fall spawning of largemouth bass in raceways, followed by winter feed-training and the on-growing of advanced fingerlings indoors. The research outlined in this proposal includes three main objectives: Objective 1. Develop brood-stock acclimation facilities and protocols for out-of-season spawning of largemouth bass in raceways. Specifically, we need to compare spawning results of brood-stock conditioned in existing flow-through raceways to those conditioned in recirculating systems designed for this purpose. Objective 2. Determine the best method for culturing largemouth bass fingerlings during the winter months. Specifically, we need to determine if it is more cost effective to utilize existing feed-training raceways, or to develop new, recirculating systems for this purpose. Objective 3. Conduct an economic analysis (enterprise budget analysis) based on the outcomes of Objectives 1 and 2, to compare the overall economic feasibility of this new production strategy with traditional fingerling production methods. If successful, this would decrease the time and pond space required to produce fingerling bass, and would subsequently free up more pond space for the production of food-sized largemouth bass. The results generated from the proposed research are necessary to determine the overall feasibility of this novel production strategy and to determine future facilities required and quantities of brood-stock necessary to meet our production goals. Out-of-season fingerling production would significantly improve our overall farm production efficiency.