Commercial production trial with high POMS tolerant triploid Pacific Oysters in approved NSW estuaries.
This project offers significant opportunity to accelerate the Australian Pacific Oyster industry to grow in production and value.
The NSW Pacific Oyster producers, especially those in POMS affect areas require both POMS resistant oysters that have all the benefits demonstrated through the ASI breeding program, and due to local regulatory requirements, and ease of management - triploid Pacific Oysters. Triploid oysters have an additional set of chromosomes (Triploid 3n vs Diploid 2n), and this provides for increased growth and better condition for extended periods compared with diploids that lose condition through reproductive activities including spawning. Triploid oysters are an important part of the broader Australian Industry, with producers incorporating them in production to ensure year round supply, especially in warmer climates such as NSW and SA where reproductive activity is enhanced.
Utilising the framework for research and development outlined below:
i) Proof of concept
ii) Proof of product
iii) Proof of markets
iv) Commercialisation
This project builds upon the the proof of concept that ASI selectively breed lines have enhanced resilience to POMS, this project addresses the second stage - Proof of product, delivering ASI breeding into a triploid product.
Final report
Future Oysters CRC-P Communication and Adoption
Future oysters CRC-P: Enhancing Pacific Oyster breeding to optimise national benefits
Future Oysters CRC-P Management and Extension
Oysters Australia IPA: Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome - resistant Oyster breeding for a sustainable Pacific Oyster Industry in Australia
Oysters Australia IPA: Australian Seafood Industries Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome (POMS) investigation into the 2016 disease outbreak in Tasmania - ASI emergency response
Seafood CRC: Australian Seafood Industries Quantitative Genetics Analysis and Training Services 2014-15 (2014/721 Communal)
In the long term the POMS Resistance Breeding Levy will secure the future of ASI and by extension selective breeding for Pacific Oysters. This in turn secures the investments made over many years by federal funding agencies. Due to delays achieving unanimous stakeholder support the approval for the levy has been later than anticipated but was formally adopted and implemented from October 13, 2014. As a result of this delay ASI is not in a position to enter into some key contracts in terms of provision of services for current data sets. The most pressing of these is the provision of genetic services undertaken by CSIRO.
The support from CRC for this activity will open up an training opportunity we would like to offer. There are a number of other participants in the CRC who are initiating family breeding programs or planning to initiate these programs. This project thus presents the opportunity of conducting the analysis as a training exercise for CRC participants including key stakeholders in the oyster breeding programs to improve understanding of the process and logistics of implementing family breeding program.
Final report
This project resulted in the genetic analysis to allow Australian Seafood Industries (ASI) to formulate a breeding plan for the 2014 breeding season.
In addition the data analysis resulted in the prioritisation of traits by industry stakeholders resulting in an agreed focus for breeding. The process resulted in training opportunities in the form of a workshop for Pacific Oyster and other industry participants to examine the requirements for managing a modern family based breeding program.
Seafood CRC: Incorporation of selection for reproductive condition, marketability and survival into a breeding strategy for Sydney rock oysters and Pacific oysters
The oyster industries now require breeding programs to focus on quality and market appeal, to increase competitiveness alongside imported and alternative products.
This project will look for preliminary evidence of sensory variation between standard and selectively bred oysters sufficient to warrant further investigation. At least, it is necessary to ensure that selection within the oyster breeding programs does not diminish marketability characteristics.
Spawning and associated reduction in marketability is often at variance with demand for table oysters , and the possibility of selecting for lines with slower/faster maturation or which have an extended reproductive peak would provide growers with better control.
There have been suggestions that selected broodstock are more difficult to condition. This must be investigated to avoid what could become a serious future limitation of the breeding programs.
The Economic Weights Model developed in FRDC 2006/227 identified the time required to reach suitable shell size and the time required to reach a suitable market condition as traits under different genetic control. The model needs refinement by determining the relationship between the two traits. In order to accurately put economic weights on growth time and condition time it is important to measure this relationship for both Pacific and SRO.
Near Infra-red Spectroscopy (NIRS) offers the ability to perform a wide range of otherwise expensive biochemical measures of condition rapidly and cost efficiently.
Mortality is a serious, ongoing problem for Pacific oysters, particularly in SA and not confined to ASI stock. While the syndrome is undefined, there is evidence that susceptibility differs between ASI lines and that the difference is partly genetic (Ryan – unpublished; Pierre Boudry).
This project seeks to develop selection methods to enhance reproductive conditioning, marketability and survival and to develop oyster families which increasingly display these features.
Seafood CRC: A one day workshop to define oyster ‘condition’ and to review the techniques available for its assessment.
Seafood CRC: enhancement of the Pacific oyster selective breeding program
The current ASI selective breeding strategy has operated successfully since 1998 (for 6 generations). It is now apparent that there are shortcomings to this strategy and major improvement is needed if the program is to be seen as “state of the art”. This proposal addresses three major needs identified as part of FRDC project 2005/227.
Firstly, there is a need to design a program that maximises profit. Selection for traits in the current ASI breeding program cannot be based on economic criteria because the economic values of Pacific oyster traits are unknown. There is a need to know the dollar value of current traits (growth rate, shape and uniformity) as well as the value of new traits. The program is unable to objectively select multiple traits without knowledge of economic weights. This proposal will use techniques used routinely in other industries to address this problem.
Secondly, there is a need to design a program that increases the rate of genetic gain. It has been estimated (FRDC project 2005/227) that gains per unit time could be doubled through addressing issues such as selection methodology, breeding population sizes, and the breeding cycle. This proposal will find the most cost effective alternatives for the Pacific oyster industry.
Thirdly, there is a need for specification of hatchery facilities which can accommodate the inclusion of additional breeding families and a data management system which complements systems for genetic evaluation and best mate allocation.
This project involves research and development of concepts which are entirely new to breeding programs for the Pacific oyster, or any other aquaculture industry. They are concepts which are well established in some land based industries. It is essential that these concepts are developed for aquaculture so that breeding programs can provide the best possible foundation for viable aquaculture industries.
Final report
The Australian national Pacific oyster selective breeding program commenced in 1998. In 2005, after 6 generations of breeding, it was apparent that there were limitations to the breeding strategy. The first was a lack of understanding of which genetic traits to select. Whilst the program was achieving genetic improvements in growth, little was known about which traits influenced grower profitability. The second was a need to develop a breeding strategy that increased genetic gains and maintained inbreeding at safe levels. And the third was a need for systems and tools to enable the breeding strategy to be efficiently implemented. The purpose of this project was to address these limitations.
This project has resulted in significant changes to the ASI Pacific oyster breeding strategy. The breeding objective has changed and is now firmly focused on an economic outcome, which is to reduce the cost of production. The size and structure of the breeding population has changed to allow greater genetic gains on a sustainable basis. The goal is to produce 50 families per year and 42 families were produced for the 2009 year class, an increase from 24 families in the previous strategy. A new nursery system has been implemented to produce the expanded population. Data collection and storage systems have been completely revised to allow more efficient data collection, more efficient storage, and safeguards against data loss. A new genetic evaluation system has been implemented which will provide more accurate selections. And a revised commercial deployment strategy has been implemented which will increase the supply of selectively bred spat to industry.