AUSTRALIAN scientific ingenuity developed the super prawn but the race is now on to protect the prawn's genetic identity.
A booming, billion-dollar aquaculture industry could rest on the outcome.
The crucial question is how to maintain breeding control of the elite black tiger prawn, which grows about 20 per cent faster than other farmed tiger prawns.
One farm growing the prawn had average yields this year of 17.5 tonnes per hectare, more than twice the industry average.
It took 10 years to create the prawn, using DNA and selective breeding, and the three Queensland farms involved want to prevent unlicensed breeding of their valuable stock.
A CSIRO research scientist, Nigel Preston, likened it to owning a pedigree horse: ''You don't want other people using it without paying a stud fee.''
The aim is to produce single-sex seed stock so prawns can be traded but not bred.
The DNA process used to develop the prawn has been used in the livestock industry for years, but this is the first time it has been applied to prawns. The process can also be used for salmon, abalone, oysters and barramundi.
Australia's aquaculture industry is worth about $1 billion, but 70 per cent of the seafood Australians eat is imported.
''We want to grow [the industry] to several billion dollars so we can provide Australian consumers with more local product,'' said Dr Preston, who will speak at a conference of Australian prawn and barramundi farmers in Brisbane this week.
The CSIRO has had 22 expressions of interest in its prawn-breeding techniques from aquaculture companies in countries including India and Vietnam.
As technology increases productivity, Dr Preston believes aquaculture could have an important part to play in Australia's food supply in future.
''It's a high-value animal protein grown in drought-proof conditions; there's no shortage of salt water here,'' he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/sup ... 113ff.html
Super Prawn at stud
Super Prawn at stud
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Super Prawn at stud
Why isn't this is in 'Science'?
Also, wasn't there a brouhaha about genetically created mice? What was the outcome of that, and maybe these folks should follow it?
Also, wasn't there a brouhaha about genetically created mice? What was the outcome of that, and maybe these folks should follow it?
