A FISH FOR THE FUTURE

A fish for the future. Gareth Moore, editor of Fish Farming Expert and LandbasedAQ.com, recently visited Mowi’s new broodstock facility at Ardessie, Wester Ross, to see how the facility will produce exclusive Mowi genetic strain eggs for all of Mowi Scotland’s farms.

Within the next two or three months, Mowi Scotland will transfer the first fish into freshwater tanks at a new recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) broodstock facility at Ardessie on the shore of Little Loch Broom.

The move will mark a major step towards improving fish health and staying ahead of the challenges that warming seas can bring to Scotland’s salmon producers.

Since concerns about potential disease transfer prompted the European Free Trade Association to ban the export of eggs from Norway in 2019, Mowi Scotland has relied on its sister company in Ireland to supply eggs from Mowi-strain broodstock, which it has found to be tougher than other strains bred for different conditions in countries such as Iceland.

“What we see is that by growing over in Ireland for many generations, the Mowi strain is much more robust to the kind of challenges that we have there and here in Scotland,” says John Richmond, broodstock & post-smolt development manager.

But the Irish facility doesn’t have the capacity to provide all the ova that the Scottish operation needs, and the eggs it supplies are only available within the window associated with the standard spawning season, which is primarily between January and April. Mowi’s large Scottish RAS hatcheries at Lochailort and Inchmore want ova supplied over a longer period to make best use of their capacity.

The Ardessie facility solves the problems. It will have a capacity to produce 50 million Mowi-strain eggs and will use photoperiod and water temperature to manipulate fish maturity so that eggs can be made available whenever they are required. This will ensure that Mowi can supply all of its marine farms with Mowi-strain smolts.

Image: Digital rendering of Mowi Scotland’s new broodstock facility at Ardessie. Credit: Mowi Scotland