Establishment of an organic line of rainbow trout

Aquaculture production has significantly increased over the last years. It is the fastest growing food production sector worldwide, with a reported annual growth rate of 5.3% during the period 2001 – 2018. One of the main challenges in aquaculture is the spread of infectious diseases, due to the close contact of individuals in the farming system and the difficulty of keeping facilities free of pathogens. In organic aquaculture, this is an even bigger challenge because of the limited number of medical treatments permitted. Hence, one of the challenges in organic aquaculture is to increase robustness of organic fish.

Denmark is one of the main producers of organic rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in the EU. Organic breeding populations have been established; however, these populations have not been bred for organic production specifically. This means that fish used for organic production are not adapted to fit the specific environmental conditions on an organic aquaculture farm, which may have a negative effect on the welfare of the fish. This is an issue as EC regulation requires that breeding populations selected for organic production need to fit the specific environmental conditions, ensuring good animal health and welfare and good utilization of feed resources.



In this PhD project, I aim to develop a breeding program tailored for organic trout production, to facilitate an increased robustness of fish, improved fish welfare as well as reduced mortality and a lower climate impact from organic trout production. By using selective breeding, a specific line of rainbow trout adapted to organic production can be created. To achieve this, the project is split into four work packages (WP).

1. Field experiment Rainbow Trout Fry Syndrome (RTFS)
2. Calculation of economic values for organic trout production
3. Genomic study of disease resistance to RTFS
4. Simulation study for development of breeding plan for organic trout