2) If they aren't waiting until the LMB are of breeding age and using a catheter to determine sex during breeding season, then how are they doing it?
Scott, they are making a lot of progress in producing genotypical mono-sex populations. This isn't 100% because more one gene can affect differentiation of sex in fish.
With regard to LMB, researchers in Arkansas found evidence that LMB females may be the hetero-gametic sex. This occurs in fish and reptiles. This genotype for this is usually described as YY (male) and YZ (female). When a LMB eggs are fertilized with sterilized (UV irradiated) sperm from white bass then the eggs will develop haploid. But if egg is subjected to high pressure during the time the first division would take place then the division will be arrested and chromosomes duplicated to make diploid zygote of only the parent female. This is not a clone of the parent female ... it contains half the genetics of the parent female (doubled) and every developing embryo will be different than all the rest. If the parent female has good genetics, some of the offspring will be very much like her (here presuming that some have acquired most of the dominate traits). Being hetero-gametic for females. Two populations of genotypes will arise from this. Normal males and Super Females. The super-female is a genotype that cannot yield genotypic males and will yield populations of normal females when bred with normal males. My hunch ... is that this is how they are doing it.
From what I`m hearing it`s too earlier to tell if these have superior growth or will it flatten out once the food chain in the ponds and lakes get more in balance.
If the LMB are not very numerous and cannot reproduce because of being 100% female, they will grow very well and more commonly outgrow LMB of presumably better genetics. This is because food is usually the limiting factor. So this is an environment/heritage question which has plagued academia for years. It's gray ... and neither white nor black.
