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Saturday, September 22, 1973
NEW DEVELOPMENT IN FISH BREEDING TECHNIQUES
Officers of the Fisheries Research Division of the Department of
Agriculture and Fisheries have had some success with an experimental project
on fish breeding that may lead to higher production in pond fish farming
in the New Territories.
A 13-man team has been working on the project for the past five years
at the department's Au Tau Research Sub-station.
The project, involving induced breeding methods is part of an extensive
research programme designed to obtain scientific and economic information
about the development of the fishing industry in Hong Kong.
Basically, induced breeding consists of injecting a mixture of hormones -
made up of the pituitary body of fish and extracted hormones called chorionic
gonadotrophin - into the body of mature male fish and a female fish which
is about to spawn.
process.
The two fish are then placed in a pool to complete the maturation
If they fail to do so, both fish are taken out when they are ready
to spawn so that the eggs and milt can be collected manually for artificial
fertilization.
While this method has proved successful, one difficulty has been
the immediate availability of milt in sufficient quantity to fertilize eggs
as soon as the latter are ovulated from the female fish. This is not always
achieved due to poor production of milt by the male fish as affected by
the environmental factors on the one hand and the rough handling of the fish
on the other,
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