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NAERINGSPH-Nærings-phd

Long-term effect of novel protein sources on growth performance and health of Atlantic salmon during the grow-out phase in sea

Alternative title: Langtidseffekt av nye fôringrediensar på tilvekst og helse hos laks gjennom vekstfasen i sjø

Awarded: NOK 1.9 mill.

Project Number:

329442

Application Type:

Project Period:

2021 - 2025

Funding received from:

Organisation:

The Norwegian salmon production is expected to increase by a five-fold by 2050. New and sustainable feed ingredients are a requirement for this to happen. Since the 90s, the amount of marine ingredients in fish feed has decreased from 90 % to 20 %. Fish meal and fish oil from wild-caught fish is a limited resource that has gradually been replaced with plant ingredients. Some plant ingredients may however cause intestinal inflammation and poor fish health in salmon, because plant ingredients may contain antinutrients and are hard to digest for carnivorous fish. To emphasise the importance of alternative feed ingredients, it is also estimated that most of the carbon footprint from salmon production comes from feed ingredients. The aim of this project is to perform long-term feed experiments on Atlantic salmon with alternative and sustainable feed ingredients, to investigate how gut health and growth is affected. The feed experiments will be conducted under commercial conditions to make the research relevant for the salmon industry. Ingredients included in the experiments will be insect meal, fermented sunflower meal and by-products from food industry. Insect meal is an example of circular bio-economy because insect larvae can be fed with food waste, a resource that is not exploited today. Processing methods such as fermentation may make feed ingredients more digestible. Samples will be collected frequently from the fish to evaluate gut health, gene expression and growth throughout the experiments.

The increase in the aquacultural sector leads to a high demand for feed resources. To ensure further growth in the sector, finding alternative feed resources is important both since fish feed accounts for about 90% of the total carbon footprint in aquaculture, and fish meal is a limited resource. Use of plant protein sources in diets for Atlantic salmon has been associated with distal intestine inflammation and intestinal cancer. Research on novel feed resources such as enhanced plant by-products by fermentation, poultry by-products or insects is of large interest to aquaculture. This project will focus on alternative feed solutions enhanced by fermentation technology in order to reduce levels of indigestible polysaccharides and antinutrition factors. Furthermore, developing feed solutions based on fermented plant ingredient combined with insects meal. In addition poultry by-products will be tested as novel protein ingredient for Atlantic salmon. To understand how enhanced plant by -products by targeted processing, poultry by-products and insects affect the intestinal pathology and immunological markers over time, it is necessary to perform long-term full-scale field trials at the commercial sites. Thus, in this project, alternative feed resources will be further developed and tested in real commercial sites in Nordfjord, investigating how these novel ingredients affect growth performance, gut function and overall fish health. Economic feasibility of adopting an alternative fish feed by examining the costs and revenues of feed production will be examined and environmental impact of novel aquafeeds will also be presented. Implementation of novel feed solution and coolaboration with strong scientific institution will strengthen a sustainable aquaculture development in the Norwegian salmon industry in Western Norway.

Publications from Cristin

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Funding scheme:

NAERINGSPH-Nærings-phd