Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Aquamax vs.Live Forage

Guess I better chime in here, since I have some inside information that other people don't have.
First, I was thrilled to see the private meetings going on at the conference, as well as both the talks given by each company's representatives.
The top marketing people were there as was nutritionists. Purina had five people there. Cargill had three.
Here's some background.
Purina decided, under the guidance of Dr. Mark Griffin, about 2004-05, to focus more on the sport fish market. Their approach has been to improve their products and figure out how to make a feed that grows big fish in a healthy way. Dr. Griffin worked on that personally. I had the pleasure to be able to test some of those feeds along the way. His first target was feed-trained bass. Silver Cup owned that commercial market (still does)at the hatcheries. But, we needed a product to use with recreational fishing ponds. AquaMax 600 was refined and AquaMax Largemouth was born. Griffin actually tried to replicate the same nutrition a rainbow trout yields when he designed AquaMax Largemouth. I helped test it, he tweaked it and put it on the market. Purina's biggest problem is getting the best feed in the hands of the consumer. Mark Griffin took another job and Darren Simon, from Griffin's team, was put in charge of the AquaMax products. After a downturn in the economy, Simon was laid off, in August 2010. At that point, the AquaMax product line was bounced around the different business groups inside Purina. The consequences were terrible. Customer service deteriorated, dealers weren't informed about the product and end users like us couldn't get our hands on the products. Finally, AquaMax, this past August, was handed over to the Wildlife Business within Purina, which makes absolute sense. Hopefully, they'll run with it.
From a personal standpoint, I've seen these feeds grow giant bluegills, over 3 pounds so far, bass up to 8 pounds and increase the standing crop of species of fish tremendously. As far as the conversion rates, based on my data in small ponds, the conversion is more like 1.3 to 1. For those of you who manage fisheries and ponds for a living, this will make sense. For those with aquaculture backgrounds, it won't make quite as much sense. Some AquaMax is actually used twice. It's used once when the fish eats it and then again when those at the bottom of the food chain eat it the second time. In a fish population that reproduces, I've seen outstanding conversion rates and numbers of fish increase significantly in ponds fed AquaMax compared to fish fed grain-based diets.

Regarding Cargill, I was invited to their research farm in Elk River, Minnesota about a year ago and took them up on the invitation. Their main mission has been focused on aquaculture, since they bought an extrusion plant in Louisiana. With David Hines' guidance and Ryan Lane's nutrition background, they've decided to make a play into the sportfish business. Their company model is more along the lines of "least cost" feed formulations by researching different protein sources, making them the most digestible for the animals and then being competitive in the marketplace. So, they have several products available on the market and are developing data to use in that marketplace. They've started by using fish farms to gain some data that they plan to bring to the recreational sport fish market. So, bottom line, they are trying to prove how good their feed is.

I love competition. I've been in Purina's camp for a long, long time, since 1995. I've been just as frustated as anyone over the last two years because of the "limbo" of AquaMax feeds. It was almost like that product was the red-headed stepchild.

I was a little bit nervous about both companies coming to Pond Boss V, but the more I thought about it, the bigger the benefit I see from it. When competition happens, the consumers benefit. Best feeds, best prices and best distribution.

I can't wait to see what happens next.