Nutritional interventions in warmer waters – CSIRO and Ridley on ABC Landline

On Sunday 23 June 2019, an ABC Landline segment went to air on the Tasmanian salmon industry and how it is facing and adapting to the challenge of warmer seawater temperature. If you are not aware, seawater temperature during Tassie’s summer is becoming warmer (~19-21°C), resulting in suboptimal conditions for salmon farming.

Related to this, Nick Wade and his co-authors published a detailed research article on growth, pigmentation and plasma biochemistry of farmed salmon during one of the warmest summers on record in the Journal of Thermal Biology. The study identified a potential marker for signs of thermal stress recovery and suggested that promoting feed intake might assist to mitigate the physiological effects of warm seawater conditions. Meanwhile, the ABC Landline segment showcased our research at Bribie Island Research Centre as part of the Ridley Umbrella Agreement on feed intake at elevated temperatures.

In the segment, Richard Smullen (Ridley Group technical and R&D manager) briefly talked about the importance and impact of the research agreement between CSIRO and Ridley. It also showed our technicians David Blyth and Natalie Habilay working with juvenile salmon, and myself sharing an overview of the feeding trial.

As mentioned in the segment, the feeding trial investigated nutritional interventions to maintain the performance and survival of juvenile Atlantic salmon in freshwater at elevated temperature. The experiment was successful, with 100% survival and dietary treatments enhancing feed intake over the control diet.

As well as the ABC Landline segment being a good showcase of the high-quality and timely research CSIRO does, it also illustrates its impact. In this case, Ridley adopted the key findings to its commercial operations that is directly benefiting salmon farmers.

CSIRO Aquaculture contact

Dr. Artur Rombenso, Research Scientist in Aquaculture Nutrition