The Lutz Report

When I was contemplating a topic for this month’s article, I was reminded of a question my daughter asked me several years ago: “Can we feed our dogs a vegetarian diet?”

Triploidy is widely used in aquaculture to improve growth rates, reduce possible impacts of farmed animals on wild aquatic ecosystems and enhance product quality, but there’s room for improvement and for alternative tech…

Although native to the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of North America, red drum are now farmed across a wide geographical range – with some producers proving more enduringly successful than others.

Perhaps one of the least aquatic forms of aquaculture involves the farming of crocodiles, alligators and caimans. These animals are referred to as semi-aquatic, and their husbandry is in some ways more similar to livesto…

Genomic selection is an effective means of improving aquatic animal health, with recent studies suggesting it can be used for a range of conditions including whitespot resistance in shrimp, herpesvirus resistance in Paci…

Catfishes have surpassed tilapia in global aquaculture production and – helped in part by the sheer number of their species and their extensive geographical range – they are set to remain at the top table.

The gene editing tool CRISPR is now being used to generate a range of traits in a variety of farmed aquatic species – including salmonids, crustaceans and carp – but there is still a way to go before it is likely to be f…

A new range of off-bottom cultivation techniques, backed by positive reports and state incentives, is beginning to supplement traditional oyster farming methods in Louisiana.

The decision to change from producing shrimp in traditional earthen ponds to a more intensive model, based on techniques adopted from Asia, has paid dividends – both for Acuamaya and for several hundred small scale produ…

Aquaculture is used to help enhance wild stocks of nearly 200 aquatic species around the world, but these programmes have had mixed results.

Reliable figures on the carbon footprints of different aquaculture species are hard to find – not least due to the variety of production systems they come from – but all suggest that aquaculture holds its own against oth…

Producing tilapia in marine environments offers a number of advantages over traditional freshwater farming of these fish – saltwater is more readily available in most countries, escaped fish are less likely to become inv…

Wild broodstock are still widely collected – both for aquaculture and for restocking purposes – but ensuring the health and welfare of these mature finfish requires careful capture and transport procedures.

Heterosis, the well-known concept of “hybrid vigour”, has been utilised to improve fitness-related traits – like growth, fecundity and disease resistance – in a number of cultured aquatic species over the years.

After decades of frustration, one of the least well-known elements of the aquaculture industry, frog farming, could be poised for growth.

Over the past few months, aquaculturists in many parts of the world have begun to focus their attention on formulating strategies to survive difficult economic conditions. As national economies trend (or plummet) downwar…

When considering ongoing genetic improvement efforts in tilapia culture, comparisons with the development of the modern chicken industry often present themselves.

Interest in tank-based shrimp production systems has been increasing in recent years in North America and Europe, while it's also slowly gaining traction in tropical regions too.

Despite severe economic challenges over the years, the US catfish farming industry is now advancing again thanks to new technologies and production strategies - including the use of split ponds.

In the first installment of a new monthly column for The Fish Site, Professor Greg Lutz looks at how Louisiana’s crawfish farmers are faring in an extraordinary year for the sector.