Better breeds of common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) for small-scale fish farmers
Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development
Collaboration for Agriculture & Rural Development
002/04VIE Project
Better Breeds of Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio L.)
for Small-scale Fish Farmers
Milestone 4: On-farm Trials and Uptake of Improved Breeds of
Common Carp
Christopher M Austin1, Tuan Anh Pham2, Binh Thanh Thai2, Hung Quang Le2
1School of Science and Primary Industries, Charles Darwin University, Darwin Northern
Territory 0909, Australia
2Research Institute for Aquaculture No 1, Dinh Bang, Tu Son, Bac Ninh, Vietnam
October, 2007
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Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................2
List of Figures .................................................................................................3
List of Table ....................................................................................................4
1. Introduction ................................................................................................6
2. Materials and methods...............................................................................7
2.1. Experimental Design..................................................................................................7
2.2. Selection of common carp strains..............................................................................8
2.3. Common carp rearing and experimental procedures .................................................9
2.4. Data collection and analysis.....................................................................................11
3. Results........................................................................................................14
3.1. Fingerling growth rate..............................................................................................14
3.2. Growth and survival of HP3 and LOC strains and effects of feed input .................14
3.3. Growth rate and survival of HP3, H3B and LOC strains ........................................17
3.4. Growth rate and survival for HP3, VNW and LOC Strains ....................................19
3.5. Growth rate and survival of HP3, H3B, VNW and LOC strains in low feed input
farms controlled for variation among farmer ponds ..................................................21
3.6. Common carp biomass production in farms stocked with three common carp strain
(HP3, H3B, LOC) ......................................................................................................23
3.7. Common carp biomass production comparing farms stocked with two common
carp strains (HP3 and LOC).......................................................................................25
3.8. Demand of the improved common carp seed ..........................................................27
4. Conclusion and Recommendations.........................................................29
Appendices ....................................................................................................33
Reference.......................................................................................................34
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List of Figures
Fig 2.1. Rice field used for farm trials in Yen Bai province.................................................9
Fig 2.2. Farmer’s pond in Thai Nguyen province.................................................................9
Fig 2.3. Measuring common carp. ......................................................................................11
Fig 2.4. Ethnic people harvesting common cap in rice field in Yen Bai province.............12
Fig 2.5. Harvesting common carp in pond in Thai Nguyen................................................13
Fig 2.6. A farmer is happy with common carp growth.......................................................13
Fig 3.1. Daily growth rate of HP3 and LOC common carp strains in each of 18 farms.....15
Fig 3.2. Example of relative growth of three strains of common carp in rice field in Yen
Bai province after six months of culture.................................................................18
Fig 3.3. Daily growth rate of HP3, H3B and LOC common carp strain in each of 11 farms
in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen provinces..................................................................18
Fig 3.4. Daily growth rate of HP3, VNW and LOC common carp strain for a period of 10
months in each farm in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen provinces................................20
Fig 3.5. Daily growth rate of HP3, H3B, VNW and LOC common carp strains in 3 farms.
................................................................................................................................22
Fig 3.6. Common carp from HP3 strain after seven months of cultured in a high input feed
farm in Thai Nguyen province................................................................................23
Fig 3.7. Proportion of genetically improved common carp fry and fingerlings cultured in
Vinh Phuc, Thai Nguyen and Yen Bai provinces during 2004-2006. ....................29
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List of Table
Table 2.1. Farms, pond type, and number of fish stocked of each strain (some farms were
remove from the data set because fish escaped during flooding)...........................10
Table 2.2. Data analyses for common carp culture farm trails...........................................13
Table 3.1 Mean (± SD) of body length and weight of fingerling carp after 60 days of
nursing ....................................................................................................................14
Table 3.2. ANOVA table testing for differences in daily growth rate in relation to the
effects of common carp strain (HP3 and LOC) and type of feed input..................15
Table 3.3. Daily growth rate of HP3 and LOC common carp strain for period of 10 months
in 18 farms in two type of feeding regimes in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen provinces.
Superscripts indicate significant differences among groups based on Tukey’s test.
................................................................................................................................15
Table 3.4. ANOVA table testing for differences in survival rate in relation to the effects of
common carp strain (HP3 and LOC) and type of feed input..................................16
Table 3.5. Survival rate of HP3 and LOC common carp strains grown for a period of 10
months in 18 farms with two types of feeding rates in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen
provinces. Superscripts indicate significant differences among groups based on
Tukey’s test.............................................................................................................16
Table 3.6. ANOVA table testing for differences in daily growth rate in relation to the
effects of common carp strain (HP3, H3B and LOC).............................................17
Table 3.7. Daily growth rate of HP3, H3B and LOC common carp strains grown for a
period of 10 months in 11 farms in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen provinces.
Superscripts indicate significant differences among groups based on Tukey’s test.
................................................................................................................................17
Table 3.8. ANOVA table testing for differences in survival rate in relation to the effects of
common carp strains (HP3, H3B and LOC)...........................................................19
Table 3.9. ANOVA table testing for differences in daily growth rate in relation to the
effects of common carp strain (HP3, VNW and LOC)...........................................19
Table 3.10. Daily growth rate of HP3, VNW and LOC common carp strains grown for a
period of 10 months in 5 farms in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen provinces.
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Superscripts indicate significant differences among groups based on Tukey’s test.
................................................................................................................................20
Table 3.11. ANOVA table testing for differences in survival rate in relation to the effects
of common carp strains (HP3, VNW and LOC).....................................................21
Table 3.12. ANOVA table testing for differences in daily growth rate in relation to the
effects of common carp strain (HP3, H3B, VNW and LOC).................................21
Table 3.13. Daily growth rate of HP3, H3B, VNW and LOC common carp strains for
period of 10 months in 3 farms in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen provinces.
Superscripts indicate significant differences among groups based on Tukey’s test.
................................................................................................................................22
Table 3.14. ANOVA table testing for differences in survival rate in relation to the effects
of common carp strains (HP3, H3B, VNW and LOC) and culture types (low and
high feed input).......................................................................................................23
Table 3.15. Biomass of common carp strains in 11 farms with 3 strains (HP3, H3B and
LOC) and cultured for 300 days in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen provinces..............24
Table 3.16. ANOVA analyses of biomass of HP3, H3B, and LOC common carp strains.25
Table 3.17. ANOVA analysis of biomass of HP3 and LOC common carp strains............25
Table 3.18. Biomass of common carp strains in 18 farms with 2 strains (HP3 and LOC)
cultured for 300 days. Superscripts indicate significant differences among groups
based on Tukey’s test..............................................................................................26
Table 3.19. Biomass of HP3 and LOC common carp strains grown for a period of 10
months in 18 farms with two types of feed input in Yen Bai and Thai Nguyen
provinces.................................................................................................................27
Table 3.20. Number of hatcheries and fry nursing farmers in 3 provinces. .......................27
Table 3.21. Number of common carp fry produced in five hatcheries in Thai Nguyen, Yen
Bai and Vinh Phuc provinces in 2006.....................................................................28
Table 3.22. Proportion of fry produced from genetically improved common carp lines in
five hatcheries in Thai Nguyen, Yen Bai, and Vinh Phuc provinces in 2006. .......28
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1. Introduction
In Vietnam aquaculture plays a very important role in economic development and food
security for small scale farmers and contributes 35% of Vietnamese protein consumption.
Aquaculture production is increasing at rate of 10% per year and contributes significantly
to the country’s export income (MOFI, 2007).
Common carp is one of the most popular freshwater aquaculture species in Vietnam and is
cultured in pond, cages, reservoir and rice field for household consumption and income
generation. A recent survey of 133 carp farmers indicated that pond and rice field
production are the preferred form of culture systems (98%) with the pond culture the most
common (Austin et al., 2007a). Most farmers culture common carp with up to 8 other fish
species, both indigenous (silver carp, black carp) and exotic (silver grass carp, bighead,
rohu, mrigal, pirapitinga, Tilapia). In polyculture ponds, common carp is the predominate
species making up 30.1% of the biomass based on a recent survey (Austin et al., 2007a).
The level of culture intensity for common carp varies from small scale extensive farming,
with fish deriving all their nutrition from natural pond productivity, through semi-
intensive farming using fertilization from organic material such as bran, agriculture by-
products and household wastes to high intensive culture system with high stocking
densities and the use of manufactured fish foods. Semi-intensive culture systems are the
most popular in Vietnam using ponds or a combination of ponds and rice field cultivation
(Austin et al., 2007a).
There are many factors that affect production and yield of farmed fish species, including
seed (fry and fingerlings) quality, feed type and rate, fertilisation and pond management,
including water exchange. Of these, seed quality, which is directly related to the genetic
quality of the broodstock used to produce the fry and fingerlings, has been identified as
being of major concern to researchers (Thai et al., 2006; 2007), but which is not generally
understood by farmers to be a potential issue affecting farm productivity (Austin et al.,
2007a).
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In Vietnam there are many different local varieties of common carp that have been used
by farmers but they usually have small size and low growth rate (Tran, 1983). Over recent
times the Research Institute for Aquaculture No.1 (RIA-I) has bred genetically improved
common carp strains to enhance the productivity of small scale fish farms that utilise this
species. This program has used crossbreeding and mass and family selection
methodologies to produce genetically improved strains and is considered to have achieved
an average increase of 5% in growth rate per generation over a number of generations
(Thien and Thang, 1992). However, all the selective breeding and associated growth trials
have been conducted in research ponds, often without the availability of unselected lines
as control populations for comparative studies.
As a consequence, on-farm growth trials of different strains were undertaken to allow for a
more effective analysis of carp growth under environments directly relevant to small scale
carp farmers and as a strategy to encourage uptake by farmers of genetically improved
strains. This report presents, firstly, a report on the statistical analysis of growth and
production of different common carp strains in small scale farmer ponds in Yen Bai and
Thai Nguyen provinces. The farmers participating in this research project included those
using both pond and rice field culture from mostly highland environments. All farmers
had previously participated in the socio-economic survey and one of two workshops on
fish breeding and genetic improvement conducted as part of this project. Secondly, a
survey of the uptake of improved breeds by producers is presented.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Experimental Design
The original objective of the on-farm trials was to compare a genetically improve carp
strain and a local strain communally reared in six ponds owned by different farmers. With
additional support from the Research Institute of Aquaculture No. 1 (RIA1), the
experimental objectives were scaled up to include 37 separate farmers and four strains.
The majority (34) of farmers used ponds as their culture systems with six farmers using
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rice field systems, which reflects the proportion of these different farming systems in these
provinces based on the socio-economic survey (Austin et al., 2007a) (Fig 2.1&2.2). Farms
were classified according to their levels of feed inputs as either high or low to determine if
this important management aspect influenced the relative performance of the different
carp strains. Farmers who did not provide food more than once per month were classified
as having “Low” input pond systems and those who fed at least once per week or more
frequently were classified as having “High” input pond systems. The experiment was
conducted over a 12 months period from March 2006 to March 2007, which included
spawning and fry rearing March – May, 2006 and fingerling grow out May 2006 to March
2007, which largely coincides with the normal carp farming culture cycle. The trials were
conducted in pond systems owned by 20 households in each of the Thai Nguyen and Yen
Bai provinces. Representatives of these households were interviewed for the socio-
economic survey and participated in one of the farmer workshops on fish breeding and
selection held as part of this project.
As described in more detail below the experimental design could not be achieved due to
differential reproduction and survival of fry. Thus different farms were stocked with
different numbers of strains and in varying combinations. Further, fish could not be
harvested from several farms due to flooding and other management problems. Appendix
1 lists the farms that participated in the project, and details of their culture systems and
fish that were stocked and if data collection at harvest was possible.
2.2. Selection of common carp strains
Fours common carp strains were used for growth trials and included one strain (HP3)
recently produced through hybridization between the three blood Hungarian strain and a
recently imported pure line of Hungarian carp, the three blood Hungarian strain (H3B), an
unselected Vietnamese strain (VNW) and a locally available strain (LOC) produced from
broodstock available from the Yen Bai provincial hatchery. Genetic analysis of this strain
(Thai et al., 2006: 2007) indicates it represented a mixture of Indonesian, Hungarian and
Vietnamese strains with the latter strain predominating.