USSEC recently celebrated the successful completion of a feeding demonstration of grass carp fingerling production with extruded soy protein concentrate (SPC) feed at the Qingyuan Holdone Fish Stock Company of Haid Group in Guangdong Province, China.  This marks the second year that USSEC has run the freshwater feeding demonstration with the Haid Group, China’s biggest producer of aquafeed.
USSEC consultants Jim Zhang, Aquaculture Program Manager, and Zhou Enhua, Technical Manager, visited the demonstration farm to supervise and monitor the inventory harvest of the grass carp fingerling trial.  The feeding demonstration spanned 145 days from June 1 to October 24.  The grass carp fingerlings were fed USSEC formulated 36/7 (36% crude protein and 7% crude fat) fingerling feed in which fishmeal has been replaced with feed grade (65% crude protein) soy protein concentrate.  The grass carp fingerlings grew from 4.5 grams to 65 grams with an average feed conversion ratio (FCR) of 1.1.  Grass carp is the number one freshwater fed species in the world with a total production of 4.87 million tons in China in 2012.  Feed for grass carp can utilize as up to 65% soy content.
Cooperators were pleased with the demonstration results of better production performance, water quality and easier management.  They have shown great interest in continuing to work with USSEC to conduct a similar feeding demonstration using USSEC formulated soy-based feeds next year.