Scotland’s salmon farming industry will be keeping a close eye on a scientific gathering in Chile next week.
Fish genetics experts, mainly from Norway and Canada, will present their findings from seven years of research which could help to combat the scourge of sea-lice and other diseases which can ruin companies’ harvesting and financial plans.
Chilean economic development agency Corfo, which part-funded the £7million study, said the work to identify and physically map the genome of Atlantic salmon could have major positive benefits for fish farmers globally.
A genome is an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its genes. Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain the organism.
Discoveries to be announced during the third 3rd International Conference on Integrative Salmonid Biology between Sunday and Wednesday are expected to improve productivity as well as the health and environmental conditions of salmon farming.
Hundreds of scientists and industry representatives from around the world have been promised a “better scientific understanding of this species and its genome”.
Scotland’s salmon farming sector is worth an estimated £700million a year, based on farm gate value
Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation research and data manager Iain Berrill said: “The industry welcomes innovations that support the development of technology to drive improvements in how we farm.
“We look forward to hearing the findings from this recent analysis”
