Monday morning, 23 October, we welcomed 15 participants at Inagro.
First we made a tour on Inagro. 230 people are performing applied research and giving advice on agri- and horticulture; arable crops, indoor production of vegetables, greenhouse, agroforestry, biogas production, insect production,…. This to end in the hatchery at Inagro were 150.000 larvae were at day after hatching 4, getting their first artemia.
Before noon we got an historical overview of the Seabass production in France by Robin Carpentier (Skretting). For sure there are lessons learned from that industry for perch and pikeperch producers.
In the afternoon a visit at the Graveline seabass hatchery was planned. The hatchery manager was answering all our questions and gave us a thorough look behind all doors. Sorry, no pictures… I feel strong to say that everybody could take some new knowledge back home. For me the most intriguing part were the strict protocols for hygiene during preparation, hatching, enriching and distributing the artemia in the hatchery. It is all about hygiene the manager said. Also applying higher standards for hygiene and water quality in the different hatchery stages gave them a boost of more than 15% in survival from egg to 2-3 gram fish.
Tuesday we started with a presentation of Cyndel Masset from Le Gouessant, she presented the vision of Le Gouessant on aquaculture. This was followed by a lively discussion and exchange of insights in different protocols applied at commercial and research hatcheries. The biggest challenge will be to find a compromise between scientific needs and commercial possibilities. In the afternoon Jan Zimmerman from Spranger Kunstoffe presented how they see future cooperation with research and farmers in order to make their systems better and more sustainable for percid fish. Later that day we got a demonstration of the latest technological development of INVE, the SnappArt. This device helps hatcheries in counting artemia after hatching, like this we get a view on hatching rate and prevalence of instar 1, 2, and non-hatched cysts.
The last day, Wednesday 25th, we made a protocol for light, feeding strategy, grading strategy, temperature, weaning, etc… This to get all of us on the same state of art and more importantly to be able to compare certain production numbers. This protocol will be shared during a webinar for the EPFC-CG members somewhere beginning 2024. All presentations and recordings are to be find behind the login for EPFC-CG members only.
Stefan
