October 30, 2020
Viet-Uc collaboration drives innovations for indoor shrimp farming
Viet-Uc Seafood Corporation, the largest producer of shrimp postlarvae (PL) in Vietnam, expanded its operation to include intensive indoor farming of pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei).
Viet-Uc, which has an annual capacity of more than 50 billion PLs from its multiple hatcheries, partnered with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to develop and optimise its production systems.
CSIRO is Australia's national science agency with an 85-year track record in developing and applying leading-edge science and technology across industrial sectors including agriculture and food, environment, manufacturing and materials, health and life science, and energy and minerals. CSIRO has more than 5,500 staff working in Australia and abroad, and is among the top 10 applied research organisations in the world. The Livestock and Aquaculture Programme has been delivering transformative technologies in Australia and globally for more than two decades through innovations in aquafeeds, animal health, production systems and breeding programmes for major aquaculture species.
CSIRO has been collaborating with Viet-Uc to develop and validate systems for improving shrimp PL production as well as shrimp growth performance and robustness through health management and selective breeding since 2010. This collaboration has recently expanded to develop hatchery and genetic management systems for pangasius and production systems for the super-intensive indoor grow-out of L. vannamei amenable to environmental conditions in Vietnam's Mekong Delta.
The rigorous commercial-scale experiments to develop and evaluate different production systems began in Bac Lieu Province in Vietnam since 2017. These involved assessing various innovative solutions for optimising grow-out survival and yields. The activities included assessing shrimp health and biosecurity systems, water additives to manage bioflocs and pathogens, sensor technologies to progressively monitor water quality parameters, data collation and management, software engineering, automation and decision support tools, and economic modelling.
Another key to the success of the collaboration has been the training of Viet-Uc staff in managing and maintaining pond water qualities and bioflocs to within specified optimal parameters.
Commercial-scaled experiments
The project completed five trials, each utilising 20 to 24 lined, 500 square metre grow-out ponds in two enclosed greenhouses at the super-intensive rearing farm at Bac Lieu. The trials ran from stocking to harvest (90 to 100 days of culture), with four to six replicate ponds used to assess each rearing system. Comprehensive monitoring systems were employed to identify factors constraining production outcomes. Through access to a dedicated onsite research and development (R&D) laboratory and deploying state of the art sensor technologies, more than 25 different production-related parameters were routinely monitored.
These parameters included the various pond water quality parameters, microbial communities, shrimp survival and growth performance, health and colour as well as weather conditions and the nature of waste produced from the ponds. Data were managed and interpreted using a customised, cloud-based data management system.
Due to the importance of commercial shrimp grow-out, biosecurity and disease mitigation systems were also considered. The presence and loads of viruses and bacteria were monitored regularly to identify associations with growth performance and survival, and whether different rearing systems were less impacted than others. Economic modelling was also extended to estimate potential gains in profitability that might be achieved through various system refinements, thus providing a tool for targeting R&D to those offering the greatest potential.
The project also offered an opportunity to deploy novel sensor technologies and develop and test machine learning algorithms to assist in transitioning production to more automated systems. Such automation will be critical for the future expansion of super-intensive shrimp production and in reducing the reliance on highly skilled technical staff.
A key requirement for the sustainability of farms is the ability to accurately predict shrimp growth and harvest yields in order to target markets that maximise profits. However, shrimp grow-out systems are complex and influenced directly and indirectly by many system designs, management strategies, nutrition and health factors. Without a deeper understanding of these influences, production is often unpredictable.
The commercial-scale data collection and evaluation systems, machine learning models and the iterative refinement and assessment of farm-specific management protocols deployed in this project have advanced deeper understanding and, therefore, greatly improved the ability to reliably predict shrimp growth and production yields.
Perspectives
Executing R&D in commercial scale shrimp grow-out systems required a fine balance between meeting commercial imperatives while preserving scientific rigor. The collaborative project between Viet-Uc and CSIRO focused on developing technologies to sustain profitable super-intensive shrimp farming in Vietnam. These technologies have involved taking a multi-factorial approach to how such super-intensive grow-out systems are designed and managed.
To date, five commercial-scale experiments have been completed, with diverse and comprehensive data being collected for 112 commercial ponds in conjunction with progressively improved rearing technologies and shrimp yields to more than 40 tonnes per hectare equivalent at higher than 85% survival rates and with feed conversion ratios of less than 1.3. While achieving such production metrics has been core to maximising the rearing system profitability, data being collected on systems to minimise water use, control vibrio numbers and automate elements of the production system are expected to improve its long-term sustainability.
- Global Aquaculture Alliance
