Alternative Solutions for Rainbow trout and Turkish Salmon Thermal tolerance and heat resistance

In 2021, Türkiye produced 0.9 million tonnes of fish including molluscs and crustaceans, with 1.8% growth rate compare to 2020. Overall, 335 thousand tonnes of production by aquaculture took place in the seas, particularly sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) and sea bream (Sparus aurata) and 136 thousand tons in inland waters, rainbow and large-trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). The most important fish species grown were rainbow trout with 135 thousand tons in inland waters, European sea bass with 155 thousand tons and gilthead sea bream with 133.476 tons in seas. Turkish salmon production being achieved 49 thousand in 2022, also will expand up to 100 thousand tons in 2023. As the Turkish aquaculture has been extremely grow fast for the last decade, Republic of Türkiye, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry wants to expand overall aquaculture growth up to 0.6 million tons in 2023. Thus, the aquaculture industry will need more than a million tons aquafeed to promote this growth trend. Therefore, the feed factories are needed to shape the production according to this growth trajectory set by the government, as aquafeed is the major input cost on this production, which ultimately affects the price of aquaculture products.

Aquaculture Nutrition team in Department of Aquaculture, Cukurova University has been working on in this respect and provide related information to the industry. The team made estimation on aquafeed production towards 2030 in Turkiye as shown in Figure 1. However, they are making estimation according to year-based Turkish aquafeed production towards 2030. These results will be presented by Dr. Eroldogan in 9th workshop (https://suymerbir.org.tr/calistay/9-calistay/) organized by Aquaculture Producers Central Union in Antalya 15-18 February 2023.

Fig. 1. Total aquafeed production by species towards 2030. Estimated average economic feed conversion rates (total feed supply / total biomass increase) taken in rainbow trout, gilthead sea bream and sea bass were 1.3, 1.65 and 1.45, respectively.

Additionally, Turkey’s aquaculture sector has strong potential to develop further, with ample space available for new marine production sites and environmental conditions amenable to a wider range of marine species. Particularly, the new production zone for marine production was moved to South-east of Mediterranean Sea where the temperature increase up to 26-30°C in summer. In addition, the increase in water temperature in inland waters draws attention. The Turkish salmon production is lakes has potential lost during summer. The heat stress and resistance in increasing water temperature is the core topic of the Nutrition Team in Cukurova University, Faculty of Fisheries, Department of Aquaculture. Prof.Dr. Tufan Eroldogan (owner of the Aquapin-www.aquaspin.com.tr) stated that “we have been working on heat stress in rainbow trout and tried to mitigate the impact of climate change in cold water species by applying different feed formulation and feeding strategies.” With our newly granted TUBITAK (Turkey Scientific and Technological Research Institution) project, we will also focus on functional feed formulations for rainbow trout and sea bass to mitigate summer conditions. There is a need for a spatial climate change planning for aquafeed. The impact of climate change will be not only for the aquafeed ingredients supply but also for the certain type of aquaculture under suboptimal conditions affected by climate change. This target issue is prompting further impetus towards the R&D efforts of the aquaculture sector in the development and refinement of possible solutions and climate change adaptation remedies.”

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