I called three of the largest sportfish hatcheries in America and talked at length about triploid crappie. They aren't interested. The most vocal was Mark Stephens, of Hopper-Stephens Hatcheries in Lonoke, Arkansas. His quote, "We won't raise triploid crappie in my lifetime."
Here's his rationale. First, triploidy isn't 100%. That means fish must be tested, if they intend to market them as triploids. To test, hatchery personnel must draw blood, from the brachial artery, to run through the Coulter Counter. Any crappie sedated, handled, punctured, then released, will likely die. Crappie are extremely delicate fish to handle. Because of heavy labor requirements, delicate nature of the fish, less than 100% triploidy, and unpredictability of spawns, individual triploid crappie would have to be sold somewhere from $4.00-8.00 each. Toss in the fact that crappie are low density fish in a hatchery pond, and every motive a hatchery owner has is corrupted. Why raise these fish, when they can raise tens of thousands of bluegill, catfish, etc., in a pond where they might raise a few hundred triploid crappie? It doesn't make sense to them.
Until some research somewhere shows triploid crappie can be raised similar to triploid grass carp, or catfish, or bluegill, or fathead minnows, or....don't expect many people to give it whirl to supply any kind of market beyond regional.
On another interesting note, Stephens is absolutely convinced there is one glaring wives tale about triploidy. The common thinking is triplod fish grow much faster and convert their feed much better because no energy goes to gonad development. "Hogwash" says Stephens. He says diploid grass carp far outgrow their triploid brothers. When his crews bring in a batch of 'triploid' grass carp and place them in a vat, he can walk by and pretty much tell which ones won't test out as triploids. Diploids are the biggest fish in the batch. He has seen it over and over.
I asked him if he had seen or read the latest info about triploid crappie work in Mississippi, and he said, "Yes, I keep up with things like that all the time." But, he isn't swayed, at least not yet in this lifetime.
