August 19, 2011
New aquaculture machinery boosts Mexico's trout output
Researchers at Mexico's National Fisheries Institute (Inapesca) created a new technology that lets trout reproduction out of the natural period, allowing the possibility to have this resource the whole year through.
According to the researcher Genoveva Ingle de la Mora, this technology will ensure the development of aquaculture and employment generation.
This is a technological process known as photoperiod, through which the trout is able to breed outside its regular period by manipulating male and female maturation process.
With photoperiod technology, it is possible to increase or reduce daylight hours-simulating summer and winter-and advance or delay the resource spawning periods.
In its pilot phase, this initiative was successful in the aquaculture centre El Zarco, located in the state of Mexico and then it was extended to the production unit Tatakany.
Given this success, trout producers in Hidalgo, Puebla, Chihuahua and Michoacán decided to ask Inapesca for advice.
The researcher also said that the modification of the reproduction process facilitates the producers' attachment in their communities, while ensuring the availability of the species and meeting the demand throughout the year.
Another researcher from Inapesca, Magdalena DomÃnguez MachÃan, stressed that the agency will allocate MXN50 million (US$4 million) to enhance aquaculture centre facilities and to promote the genetic improvement of several farming resources: trout, white croacker, pink and blue abalone, tilapia and white fish, among others.
Inapessca is an institute under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (Sagarpa).
