Aquaculture America 2020

February 9 - 12, 2020

Honolulu, Hawaii

USING SOUND TO IMPROVE HARVEST EFFICIENCY IN CHANNEL CATFISH Ictalurus punctatus

Rachel Beecham, Bradley Goodwiller , JD Heffington

The once flourishing American catfish industry is now at risk because of high production costs and foreign competition.  Seining is the most efficient way of harvesting channel catfish from ponds.  Seining efficiency is poor when pond bottoms are soft and muddy with large depressions and elevations.  The purpose of this study is to determine if seining efficiency could be increased with the help of sound.  The research was conducted at Delta Western Research Center, Indianola, Mississippi, USA.  Twenty-one experimental ponds were harvested with the seine and underwater speaker while thirty-nine control ponds were harvested with just the seine.  The amount of catfish seined, in weight, was compared to the amount of catfish scrapped in all ponds.  Data presented in this study demonstrates that the underwater speaker had no significant impact on the seining efficiency.  The average percent seined from each pond with sound is 61.06% and the average percent seined from each pond without sound is 56.21%.   This study suggests that using sound does not increase seining efficiency.