Summary

The Projects’ primary purpose is to improve marron farming production and lower the long term costs of production. The Projects’ aim is to develop ways to increase marron production yields (saleable biomass) per pond per year. The test of the Project and its’ pond infrastructure and management systems is whether they generate commercial returns and are able to be easily replicated onto other farms, thus building the marron industry.

Program

New and Emerging Animal Industries

Research Organisation

John Luckens

Objective Summary

The objective is to prove the concept of the circular design and integrated pond system including;
• design, construction and evaluation of the water use neutral components (‘petals’, see below), designed to control evaporation rates within the range of 40-60%pa (subject to coverage) and moderate water temperature by 2°C (warmer) in winter and 2°C (cooler) in summer
• compare effectiveness of evaporative water savings using petals, dissolved oxygen and water temperature against traditional systems
• ability of the radial aeration design to maintain dissolved oxygen levels at 4 ppm minimum and ‘sweep’ the pond floor (by water flow) enabling control of sedimentation and removal of waste products
• identify and resolve any feeding and bio fouling problems with ‘petals’ and other pond infrastructure
Assuming success in this proof of concept stage, a further 34 ponds are anticipated to be built at Kangabbie Farm.
The overall objective of this component of the project is to bring forward the time of breeding through environmental manipulations of brood stock marron in tank systems and to develop a program for genetic improvement of marron. The breeding system objective is proof of concept of the management process and the new facilities. The objective of the breeding program is new science applying emerging technologies to the marron industry, including carrying out new research by the development of genetic markers.
3 Moult management
The objective is to induce an earlier spring moult and improve moult survival rates in the second and third years of grow-out. The objective is to prove the concept that farm manipulation of moulting is a potential tool for productivity improvements.
The second objective is to understand the marron growth cycle, focusing on the moult process. This will be an original research project, with a PhD scholarship sought by Flinders University.