Saturday, March 13, 2010

Research to Market


John Sandor asked,"Can you give me some examples of successful aquaculture projects at HIMB that have made it to the commercial world?. . ."

The response from Dr. Clyde Tamaru:

"The one success story where research has gone to full commercial scale operations is the development of hatchery technologies with the moi or Pacific threadfin. The research work was initially started with Robert May back in the 70's at HIMB where he got the moi brood stock to spawn naturally in cages and did some initial larval rearing work..I was an undergraduate student at the time. That success would ultimately lead to the current hatchery outputs that support commercial production in 4 open ocean sea cages and at approximately 400,000 lbs per year with plans for expansion to 1.2 million pounds per year.

While our opakapaka work has yet to yield the kind of results that we would like it is also geared to trying to develop the hatchery technology where it might follow the same path as the moi. Commercial farmers still benefit from the work being done with the opakapaka project. Results from our live feeds work with the opakapaka project has benefitted stakeholders like Hukilau Foods in improving their hatchery outputs. Attached is an unsolicited letter of appreciation from the hatchery manager regarding the technical support we have provided and have made a significant impact.

This is similar to the kind of technical support that was provided to Ocean Rider, Inc., where the results obtained in a Sea Grant funded project (check this link) lead to resolving a key issue regarding the nutritional quality of the live foods being provided to seahorse larvae and adults. We cannot claim total credit for the establishment of the second only commercial seahorse farm in the world but we did have a part in resolving some of the technical challenges that Ocean Rider were facing during those early years..

We are hoping that the feather duster work will be taken up by the private sector,,,

Anyway hope that helps and would be happy to answer any other questions...."


Clyde S. Tamaru
Aquaculture Specialist
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources
Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering
1955 East-West Road, Ag. Science 218
Honolulu, HI 96822
Phone: 808-342-1063
email: ctamaru@hawaii.edu

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