- FISH FARMING (PISCICULTURE)
Pisciculture or fishery or fish farming involves the rearing and breeding of fish, shellfish and other aquatic animals scientifically by man in ponds, tanks, etc. Other aquatic animals include prawns, crabs, lobsters, edible Oysters etc. India occupies 7th position in the world in total fish production. Central institute of freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA), Bhubaneshwar have revolutionized fish culture in india .Blue revolution and a net production of 85.000 kg/hectare has already been Achieved.
Importance or economies:
Fish as food: Fish is a cheap but rich source of animal Proteins. The fish meat has a number of advantages over meat of other animals Because it contains more proteins. Besides providing food, pisciculture also provides a number of by products like Vitamin-rich liver oil e.g. Cod, Halibut, etc. fish-meal (from salmon and haddock And contains 55-70% proteins) fish protein concentrate (contains about 80-90% Proteins) fish guana (used as manure) etc. It also provides employment and better usage of infertile land and water bodies Gambusia fish eats mosquito larvae and helps in biological control of malaria.
- Types of fish farming:
- On the basis of nature of source of fishes, fish farming is of tow types:
Capture fisheries: fish is caught directly from their natural resources.
Cultre fisheries: fish is cultivated in artificial water bodies called breeding ponds.
- On the basis of nature of water sources, fish farming is of two types:
Marine fisheries: It involves fish production in marine(sea) waters.
Inland fisheries: It involves fish production in fresh water systems and brackish waters like estiaries and lagoons.
- Culturable breeds of fishes: These are divided into three categories.
- Indigenous fresh water major carps e.g. catla catla (katala), labeo Rohita (Rohu).
- Salt water fishes which can live in sea water e.g. chanos mullets
- Exotic fresh water breeds e.g. common carp, mirror carp. Chines carp, silver carp and grass carp etc.
Major carps are best culturable fishes because these survive even at high temperature and low oxygen. These also have fast growth rate and provide easily digestible and nutritive flesh.
- Composite fish culture (poly-culture)
Polyculture is a novel method of fish farming in which many types of fishes are cultured together into a pond or water body. In India, it is a very old practice in which Catla, labeo (rohu) and cirrhinus (all Indian breeds) are cultured in same water body.
All the ecological zones (called nitches) are exploited. This increases the fish yield from the pond.
There will be no-competition between different species of the fishes as different fishes have different food habits e.g. catla is a surface feeder.
These fishes help in growth of each other.
- Common diseases of fishes:
Main infectious diseases of fishes are: Viral Haemorrhagic septicemia(VHS) and Bacterial infections pancreatic Necrosis(IPN).
Apiculture is the process of rearing of honey bees in the artificial Hives, called apiaries, for the production of honey at commercial level.
- Species of honey bees: bees belong to phylum Arthropoda and class Insect. These are several species of honey bees some of which are indigenous .While some of them are exotic.
- Indigenous species
Apisindica: It is commonly called Indian bee. It is the most common species found in India. It can be domesticated easily as is very gently in nature but is less producing species.
Apis florae: It is commonly called little bee(being smallest sized).It is also very docile but yield is less.
Apis mellifera. It is commonly called Italian bee. It is preferred over the indigenous species for the commercial production of honey because of its Docil nature, high yield of honey prolific egg production, less swarming and with Good defense mechanism.