Defence tactics

A new lease of life for shrimp (Credit: Arvind Yadav / CSE)FOR hundreds of shrimp farmers facing
unemployment and starvation due to
the outbreak of a deadly shrimp disease, there is still some hope. According to experts of the Marine Products
Exports Development Authority in
Andhra Pradesh, a two-pronged strategy used by the fish-farmers of Thailand and Ecuador to revive shrimp culture has shown promising results in
India too.

The strategy involved stocking of
'healthy seed' or shrimp larva which
was produced by 120-odd hatcheries in
the state using a technology developed
by Patrick Sorgeloos, an authority on
the subject. His technology was used to
produce the favourite feed of the
shrimp larvae, hermaphrodite artemia.
When dissolved in salt pans for 24
hours, the arternia turns
into a fast moving microorganism attracting the
shrimp larvae. Highly proteinous substances like the
poly unsaturated fatty acid
and highly unsaturated
fatty acids are fed to the
arternia before they are
made into dried cysts. This
brine shrimp cyst, when
mixed with salt water in
the ponds and fed to the
shrimp larvae, makes them
strong and immune to
viral attacks.