Australasian Aquaculture Conference
The first Australasian Aquaculture Conference was in held in Sydney, Australia from September 20th to 23rd, 2004. The event has evolved from the biennial AquaFest which used to be held in Tasmania. It was also held in conjunction with the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the World Aquaculture Society meeting and had a significant tradeshow showcasing the latest in equipment, feeds and technology available for the industry. There were several sessions devoted to fish, crustacean and larval nutrition reflecting the key importance of this field to the ongoing development of the aquaculture industry in the region. The fish nutrition session had a theme of “Nutritional challenges to feeding finfish in Australasia – protein sources, species and environmental challenges”. The theme was designed to show how Australia can make best use of its plant protein sources and deliver environmental solutions through feeds for the aquaculture industry. The keynote presentation highlighted the progress made in recent years on the use of Australian plant protein sources such as lupins by aqua feed companies in Australia and worldwide. Feed companies, grain processors and scientists from seven different research organizations have worked together in the past to commercialize the grain varieties, and are presently working on technology for quality evaluation using Near Infrared Spectroscopy. Considerable effort is also spent on understanding the functional properties of the grain to optimize their potential in extruded fish diets and in improving the physical characteristics of fish feeds. Other presentations in the fish nutrition session examined issues such as the relationship between feed ingredients and feed application of several species, the effects of nutrition on estimation of metabolic rate, some recent developments in tuna nutrition and the effects of water temperature on growth of Atlantic salmon. This later aspect is of particular importance to the growing Tasmanian salmon industry as it operates for most of the year at temperatures that are at the upper thermal limits of the species. The crustacean nutrition session had an interesting series of talks examining the role of research in feed development from the perspectives of researchers, feed manufacturers and aquaculturists. The session was dominated by papers on nutritional issues for shrimp farming, consistent with importance of this sector in Asia-Pacific. Similar to work on fishes, considerable effort is spent on proving the potential for lupins in shrimp diets. The larval nutrition session had presenters from Europe, Australia, Japan and the Middle East dealing with specific nutrition requirements for larval species and the application of new techniques to produce Artemia. In general, the presentations from the Australasian Aquaculture Conference show that there is a strong applied focus on much of R&D from the region. In many cases, the feed industry is integrally involved in the research projects. The lack of fundamental research will need to be addressed in the future. It is expected that the next Australasian Aquaculture Conference will be held at Adelaide in South Australia in 2006. Brett Glencross, Ph.D. |
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Photo: Dr Rhys Hauler from Skretting Australia presents some of the latest findings on high-temperature effects on growth energetics of Atlantic salmon