Environmental science students recently learned about catfish production at the Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center in Stoneville, Miss.Dr. Nina Baghai-Riding’s Foundation of Environmental Science class recently toured the catfish laboratories at the Thad Cochran National Warmwater Aquaculture Center in Stoneville, Miss.
Dr. Brian C. Peterson, research physiologist, led the tour. The students learned aspects associated with catfish production, such as growth and maturation rate, bacteria diseases, feeding costs, and aspects concerning genetic variation. In addition, the class saw research laboratories, how fish are pit tagged, watched catfish being fed and observed machinery involved in filleting catfish.
“The tour fit in real well with what my class was studying,” said Baghai-Riding. “At that time, we were talking about genetic engineered food. Catfish is a major agricultural product in Mississippi. Improvements are constantly being made to raise and enhance food for flavor, yield, pest resistance, and more.
Seeing the catfish farming helped my students understand how catfish breeding is done. At Stoneville, catfish are studied to enhance their resistance to disease, speed up their maturity and flavor.”
The class also saw several strains of blue and channel catfish as well as hybrid catfish. Baghai-Riding’s last couple of class sessions focused on the production and distribution of food from a world perspective. Touring a local catfish research facility was enlightening to her class. Students became aware of the amount of food, temperature parameters, and other environmental factors that are necessary to raise catfish.
“The trip to the catfish labs at Stoneville gave me a great confirmation of all the work that goes into catfish farming and research,” said student Jamal Hester. “I experienced how catfish were fed, bred through selective mating, researched, pit tagged and much more.”
Commercial catfish production is a major aquaculture industry in the United States, and the Mississippi Delta has thousands of acres devoted to catfish production.
To learn more about the Environmental Science program at Delta State, contact Baghai-Riding at nbaghai@deltastate.edu or call the Department of Biological Sciences at 662-846-4240.
