HAB survivors could strengthen MH strain
Plans to use salmon that survived this year’s algal blooms in Chile to start a new breeding programme have been initiated by Marine Harvest Chile.
Marine Harvest lost 3.49 million salmon at sites that were hit by the blooms earlier this year, but 11,000 survived and, of these, 5,000 have been transferred to MH’s Huenquillahue trial facility. The salmon producer is now awaiting approval from Sernapesca before it can add these to its breeding programme.
The veteran fish, which could spawn in 2018, after spending a year in freshwater, could bring added robustness to the strain that Marine Harvest started developing in Chile 18 years ago.
About Huenquillahue
The MH trial facility was established in 2013 and is located 17km from Puerto Montt.
It consists of two dozen 5x5 m cages and its first project, which was undertaken in conjunction with Novartis, involved testing a worming product which became Imvixa. The centre, which is operated by a team of six staff, has also been involved in experiments with salmon diets as well as three promising cleanerfish trials.
