Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Triploid fish being refined

Triploids have been around a while but this is an improvement with an improved frequency of induction. At some point maybe an enterprising fish producer will produce triploid crappie or bass.

http://fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.a...;ndb=1&df=0

Thanks Cecil - this is potentially significant news that impacts all of us. If triploid fish were easier/cost effective to produce the possibilities are endless. I would love triploid LMB, BG and BC in my ponds. Whomever figures this out first is going to blazing a trail and will make millions.

Jeff Goldblum comes to mind for me here...."Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

No worries Rex these fish are sterile remember. No effect on the gene pool.

BTW how many of you knew that the bananas and seedless watermellons you eat are triploids?

I got this in an email from Douglas Sweet superintendent of hatcheries in New London, Ohio.

Producing triploids like this is nothing new. Its been done with seedless watermellons and the dwarf cavendish banana that everyone here in the U.S. knows as the yellow, standard, banana in the grocery store. The dwarf cavendish was developed some time in the distant past when a tetraploid banana variety was crossed with a diploid. The advantage of plants is all you need is one, and then asexual reproduction and limited selection can take over from there. So small yield is not a problem with plants since you can make, or find, one tetraploid and then grow that plant into thousands or millions from taking cuttings and through vegetative reproduction. Once you have enough then you can make crosses and produce triploids. Or if you fine one freak tetraploid, cross it with a diploid, to produce a handful of triploids and then reproduce those asexually by cuttings or suckers until you have a whole "tropical" world filled with dwarf cavendish bananas. This is one of the reasons why several banana blights are running rampant. Almost all of the world's production of exported bananas are of triploid, sterile, monocultured, dwarf cavendish bananas. Very little genetic diversity from a small founding stock.....maybe one tetraploid crossed with a diploid making a seedless banana that some ancient Polynesian said, "Hey this banana tastes good and better yet has no seeds! Let's plant only this one instead of all the seeded varieties!" All this so you have a sweet, slow ripening, shippable, and seedless banana! Too bad fish aren't like plants! Ha!

Cecil, my post was mostly tongue in cheeck.

I have no concern about the gene pool in the fish stock. My sarcasm was aimed more towrd the fact it is to produce fish to be food. the gene pool that may be effected could be the gene pool eating the fish.

I don't know, but can't help but notice many helth issues did not exist until genetic modifications became the norm. Is there a corelation? I have no idea nor concern. An 80yo dead man that never exercised is just as dead as the 80yo health nut. I bet one had more fun on the way to the grave than the other though....

I really have no concern either way to be honest, I rarely eat fish....

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time....

There see if you can get that song out of your head.

Cecil, I didn't know they were triploids, but will UNDOUBTEDLY use those examples in the future!!

FYI - Genetic modifications are present in almost every variety of every crop (and livestock species) we grow. Crop plants are domesticated wild plants. Domestications included selections and breeding for genetics that favored producing high yields of food (like wheat and cotton varieties that are all tetraploids). This has gone on for over 10,000 years. The only exceptions are wild plants that have only very recently been grown by farmers like some herbs. I'll take my chances with the crops selected as food crops by people and which have been eaten safetly for many centuries vs. being a guinea pig for new ones. Not sure what new health issues you are referring to except for those cause by the availability of too much food (over-eating) or those that result from us living twice as long as folks did a couple hundred years ago (diseases of those over 50).

Sorry, I don't see any comparison in "selective breeding" with genetic modification. Picking the best of the best of the best is how we got the Condello and Bardello strains of bluegill...These are NOT genetically modified species...they are simply genetically superior. There is a huge difference in this fact---it is not just semantics. Genetic modification is the actual splicing and manipulations of DNA that will could never occur naturally.

Selection has been around forever, GMT less than 100 years. Coincidentally, most cancers have only been around a slightly less amount of time....

Oh, I thought you were talking about modifying the genetics of crops, like adding genes from wild crop relatives, mutagenesis (both chemical and with radiation which has resulted in over 2,000 common commercial crop varieties), gene insertion, gene deletion, and gene rearrangment, that are all common in "traditional breeding", but you are reffering to transgenesis which is a recently applied technology (about 15 years). Where did you come up with cancers being recent. The rise in cancer is almost exclusively associated with older folks who would not have made it to that age 200 years ago. technology has brought us longer lives. This is not really controversial among scientists, just lay folks.

P.S. Diploids have 2 copies of the genome like you and I, triploids have 3 copies, and tetraploids like wheat and cotton have 4 copies. So if triploids are "bad" don't eat bread!

Interestingly to make this discussion even more interesting I don't believe triploids are technically considered genetically modified. That is, the genes aren't modified, it's just there are an extra set of genes. Additionally you can get triploids and tetraploids naturally in nature. Not very common but it does happen. I wonder how many state and world records may be these naturally occurring tetraploids?

Cecil - You are correct that these are not considered genetically modified, but this is a misnomer; their genetics have been modified. In fact every individual organism has changes to their genes through natural mutation; most are neutral or detrimental. The artificial seperation of transgenesis from other equally "unatural" but "traditional" breeding methods is a common thing for newer technology. Vaccines against disease were seen as bad when they were first introduced and are stil rejected by fringe elements. Nature is a dangerous thing. It has no concious.

...so to pick up where this was left a few years ago...Can an average Joe find triploid LMB for pond stocking? looking for a sterile predator/gamefish that can be stocked in central indiana other than HSB. Any insight is appreiciated

are tiger musky not an option in your region? They have a few that are flourishing in a strip mine lake in central illinois that i know of, however, that is a ridiculously large and deep lake, and from what i have noticed it is generally very cold water when compared to the rest of the region, which may bend some the rules.

I dunno, just a thought. I thought TM were sterile by nature.

You know there is already a genetic markers that had been found..right? It's still in debate whether or not we should continue with such progression due to a possible "bite-on-our-***es" later. From one scientist to another..

See this thread on triploid LMB.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=105508&page=1

A quote from the article....

"Bigger fish for consumers and sterile fish for producers and anglers are the goals of ARS scientists who are working with the aquaculture industry on genetic methods to more efficiently produce fish that grow faster on less feed and can't reproduce in the wild."



And then there comes patents on genes......when your commercial fish, contain a patented gene through natural breeding processes, the whole Reese's peanut butter cup becomes a legal issue.....who got their peanut butter on my chocolate? A bit off the subject, but I see it coming.

It's happened in the world of agriculture with pollen floating on the breeze. Careful it could be coming to a town near you!

Single sex LMB would be a good alternative. Especially during the spawn, one can 100% ID one sex over another...