Intensive aeration of channel catfish ponds. Six 10-hp aerators (one out of sight to the left) being used in a ten-acre catfish pond.
Catfish Fingerlings
Catfish swim-up fry in hatchery
Hybrid catfish harvested as two-pound food fish one year after fingerlings were stocked
Technicians wade into broodfish ponds to find and remove spawns that are laid in spawning cans by broodfish.
A catfish egg mass, or spawn, after removal from a broodfish pond. Spawns are brought into the Hatchery to hatch and grow into fingerlings before being returned to grow-out ponds.
Channel Catfish Fry 21 days after hatching.
A research scientist inspects families of Delta Select channel catfish destined for release to the catfish farming industry.
Hybrid catfish
(Channel catfish female
x Blue catfish male)
are very aggressive feeders that thrive in the Partitioned Aquaculture System.
Clean water from the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer supplies the catfish ponds in the Mississippi Delta.
Channel catfish in a basket while loading into a hauling truck.
The goal of the Warmwater Aquaculture Research Unit is to assist the catfish farming industry in producing a clean, healthy, and sustainable food product.
Mission
The mission of the Warmwater Aquaculture Research Unit is to develop technologies that improve the efficiency, profitability, and sustainability of fish farming in the United States. This mission will be accomplished by developing improved fish strains and hybrids and by developing better production technologies. Advances in applied breeding will rely on information derived from research in quantitative and qualitative genetics, reproduction, physiology, immunology, molecular and cellular genetics, and bioinformatics. Hatchery and pond management technologies will be developed to provide environmental conditions that maximize performance of genetically improved fish.