Rick Bogren and Linda Foster Benedict
Louisiana?s abundant fresh, brackish and marine water resources, heavy soils, flat lands, temperate water and semitropical climate ensured that the state would be a leader in aquaculture.
During the 20th century commercial aquaculture industries developed in Louisiana for finfishes including channel catfish, baitfish, tilapia and recreational sport fishes; crustaceans including freshwater crawfish and soft-shell blue crabs; and reptiles including the American alligator and red-eared turtles.
The state?s enormous estuarine-based oyster industry dates from the 19th century and entered the 21st century as the dominant source of cultured oysters in the United States. Research was done in the area of saltwater shrimp culture in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although research in aquaculture in the United States ? and specifically Louisiana ? dates much later than traditional agriculture, modern scientific principles used in farm animal husbandry are applied to the field of aquaculture. The Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station has been a leader in allocating resources for commercial development of aquaculture in Louisiana.
Early Development
Aquaculture research had its origins following World War II in the School of Forestry (changed to the School of Renewable Natural Resources in 2002). In 1949, two fisheries courses in pond and stream management were developed and added to the wildlife curriculum by professor Bryant Bateman. He started a program of sampling local recreational fish ponds near Baton Rouge and provided management recommendations to the pond owners.
The Louisiana Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit was established within the school in 1963. The unit is a federal research component of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Department of the Interior) and is contractually partnered with the AgCenter and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. William H. Herke assumed duties as the first acting unit leader, and R. O?Neal Smitherman became unit leader in 1964.
James W. Avault Jr. joined the fisheries faculty in 1966, and he directed the development of aquaculture. He taught the fisheries courses and with Smitherman began a research program that focused on crawfish, channel catfish and other coastal species.
Aquaculture Emerges
Within a year of his hire, Avault asked J. Norman Efferson, then dean of the College of Agriculture, for access to land to build experimental ponds to support the new aquaculture research program. At that time, the Ben Hur Research Farm, several miles south of the LSU campus, had an existing 17-acre lake and a 5-acre lake but no research buildings or support structures.
During the 1970s, with support from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, a number of earthen ponds and above-ground pools were constructed at the Ben Hur Farm. Avault directed research activities on assessing the commercial potential for farming marine shrimp and several marine finfishes, including pompano and croaker.
Dudley Culley developed a research program in bullfrog aquaculture in the early 1970s, not to produce frogs for human consumption but rather to develop a better biomedical research animal. Many live bullfrogs captured in the United States are used in biomedical research. Culley was for many years the United States are used in biomedical research. Culley was for many years the foremost authority on bullfrog culture in the country. Later in his career Culley initiated a research program with soft-shell crawfish aquaculture, and his research was instrumental in developing a soft-shell crawfish industry in Louisiana. Culley retired from the AgCenter in 1995.
In 1980, Robert Romaire joined the aquaculture faculty as a researcher to help with an expanding crawfish farming industry. His early efforts focused on improving harvesting efficiency, population and reproductive ecology, water quality management and pesticide toxicology.
Louisiana Aquaculture Plan
In 1976, Congress passed a bill declaring the potential for aquaculture in the United States. Congressman (later U.S. Senator) John Breaux, of Crowley, was a co-author of the bill, which called for a National Aquaculture Plan and recommended that states develop their own aquaculture plans to coordinate state and federal efforts, which Louisiana did in 1980.
In 1987, the aquaculture faculty received a grant to purchase 100, 12-foot-diameter fiberglass tanks, aerators and electrical service to the station?s 145 experimental aquaculture ponds. In 1992, construction of a 22,000-squarefoot aquaculture research and office building was completed at the Ben Hur Research Farm. In 1988, the AgCenter acquired an annually renewable special aquaculture grant from USDA that supported many aquaculture research projects for 22 years.
Aquaculture Station
In 1998, the AgCenter established the Aquaculture Research Station. The station has 146 experimental ponds, ranging in size from 0.02 to 19.0 acres and totaling 50 surface water acres; more than 200 outdoor above-ground fiberglass tanks; a fish hatchery, fish holding facility, and a greenhouse for overwintering tropical aquatic species; nearly 12,000 square feet of wet laboratories. These facilities are used for research in nutrition, fish genetics and breeding, water quality and toxicology, and production systems, with a wide variety of tanks, aquaria, and recirculating systems to accommodate both freshwater and marine finfishes, crustaceans and mollusks.
The crawfish research facility at the Rice Research Station in Crowley is in the heartland of Louisiana?s crawfish industry. The facility has 24, 1-acre experimental crawfish ponds and in excess of 1,600 square feet of wet laboratory space. The School of Veterinary Medicine has several laboratories assigned to aquatic animal disease research and houses the Aquatic Diagnostic Laboratory, whose staff provides disease diagnosis and control measure recommendations to Louisiana?s commercial aquaculture industries and state agencies. Wet labs to support engineering research in aquaculture process control and re-circulating systems are in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering.
Rick Bogren, Professor, Communication, LSU AgCenter, Baton Rouge, La. and Linda Foster Benedict, Associate Director & Professor, Communication, LSU AgCenter, Baton Rouge, La.
(This article was published in the spring 2012 issue of Louisiana Agriculture Magazine.)
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