Last week we pretty much buttoned up all of the loose ends on construction and installation.
The boiler is now in and operational so we are no longer being held hostage by the vagaries of the weather.
The ponds are all functioning and the WWT is 100% online.
The beginnings of our lab are taking shape and we have begun developing testing and quality protocols.
And the generator is operational.
A new shipment of Pl's will arrive this week. Many of the shrimp initially stocked as post larvae before Christmas are at weights of 10 grams or better and this despite several cool nights where water temperatures in the ponds dropped to below optimum.
We even have furniture and pictures hung in the office. (Still waiting on a coffee maker though).
So we now have a fully functioning small, bio-secure, recirculating shrimp operation. Go Figure !!!!
I was running on the beach yesterday on South Padre Island.
This is a very "cool" island.
One local who I have met here calls it the"perfect island for imperfect people".
How cool is that ?
About halfway through my run I stopped to watch a group (pod?) of dolphins surfing the waves.
They would catch an incoming wave and ride it on the crest almost to the shore.
They did it just for fun.
It is hard to imagine (as I watch wild dolphins surfing) a time when "educated" (yes, I am being sarcastic) people thought animals were like machines and had no feelings or emotions.
I am always amazed by the stupidity and arrogance of so many educated people.
In any event, these dolphins were clearly enjoying the experience of surfing the waves.
They reminded me of an earlier time in my life when I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to swim with dolphins long before it became popular.
I dug up an old picture. Dolphins are so cool. And yes, I am certain they have feelings, emotions, and that "they think (so therefor like ourselves) they are". (paraphrasing Descartes famous "I think, therefore I am".
Been a very hectic past 10 days.
Finally have Lori moved and settled into Texas residence.
Taking our menagerie from Maryland to Texas was quite an adventure.
Hopefully, the sun and warmth will work to help her get some strength back.
The proximity to MD Anderson is also very critical.
So for now, things are stable as we wait and see what this disease will do next.
At the production greenhouse things are finally all online.
The WWT is functioning and the boiler has been installed and the gas lines attached.
New stocking protocols are being developed and by March we should have all the ponds stocked in the proper order and be in full production cycle.
Now I am turning my attention to finding the funding for expansion.
Had a call from a Middle Eastern company who wants to develop a closed system in that part of the world.
To be honest having traveled in the past ten years to Iran, Saudi, U.A.E., etc., I am not that enamored with working in that part of the world.
We will listen to what they have to offer but I think we will be sticking to expanding in the good old USA for now.
I had breakfast the other morning with a gentleman that has been in the shrimp aquaculture world for nearly 30 years.
Though his operations employ open pond technology and not the new technology that we utilize in our closed recirculating system, it was a pleasure to talk with someone as knowledgeable and as cognizant of the factors that have in the past and will in the future drive the economic engine for the development of a domestic aquaculture industry.
His observations underscored my own opinions completely.
Shrimp prices (for all sizes of shrimp) are going to continue to climb. There may be some minor ups and downs in the smaller sizes based on seasonality and availability but in general the demand for shrimp is increasing and the supply both from wild caught fisheries and open pond aquaculture cannot keep up.
I mean China has started to import shrimp. Go figure. And with an appetite for seafood and a growing middle class with enormous disposable income China figures to be the major consumer for decades.
Match this with the increasing desire for healthy sustainable (read "green") seafood in Europe and the USA and it does not take an economist to see where shrimp prices are heading.
Consumers in the USA and Europe are really beginning to pay attention to the "quality" of the seafood they purchase and that also bodes well for any USA produced seafood.
(And to be blunt having personally seen shrimp and fish aquaculture operations in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and many other countries, if consumers saw the operational practices at these places, they would not touch much of the seafood that is produced there and exported to the USA).
We also talked about how important it is that the United States start producing something in this country other then entertainment and celebrities.
While we talked mostly about shrimp production we also both agree that certain species of high quality fin fish have the potential for an enormous upside once they are in domestic production.
One of the many positive things about the production system we employ is its ability to be adapted to grow certain species of fin fish. For me this is one of the most exciting things I can look to in the future.
Once we have sufficient production capacity for large shrimp I see us quickly launching at least two production operations with two different fin fish species.
In any event, it was a very enjoyable breakfast and very affirming to have someone else in this business share his conviction that the time is "now" for the development of a domestic aquaculture industry over the next decade.
After a lot of discussion and thought the directors of our company have decided that over the next 6 months we want to focus on finding the funds to expand our production capacity in south Texas.
I am very content with that decision.
There is something comforting about working in the USA. Despite our problems this is still (to me) the greatest country in the world.
From what I have experienced the past year, Texas is also a very hospitable State in which to do business.
I like the people here.
Also, there is a bit of karma in this decision. The initial impetus for this project came from research that was developed to see if there could be a sustainable aquaculture industry within the USA.
Our system proves beyond a doubt that the answer to that question is "yes".
Right now once we get to full production capacity this single greenhouse we have can produce about 80,000 pounds of head on jumbo shrimp annually. Not exactly a massive number but better then "none".
We feel we can expand that capacity to about 1.2 million pounds annually with an investment between 6-8 million USA.
After that we can finance internally to grow production to a target goal of ten million pounds annually.
That is a lot of shrimp to be "Made in America". So, that is the plan now we have to make it happen.
I have a great team of aquaculture guys that really know their jobs.
The temperatures the past few weeks have been cooler than normal here in southern Texas. A lot of cloudy days as well.
Maintaining the optimal temperature in our production ponds is one of the many critical components that makes our system so much more successful than the production from open water ponds. (There are actually about 15 critical components that we manipulate and control to optimize our system's productivity).
Cloudy days in the winter are not our friends.
We faced an enormous amount of pressure in 2011 just trying to get the facility up and operational. In February 2011 we arrived in Texas. We did not secure a site until late April. We hired our contractor on May 22, and we found and directed the work by all the sub-contractors beginning in June.
We brought our first post larval shrimp to the facility in early November. During this period (From June 2011 to November 5th) we all secured our aquaculture permit, our exotic species permit and our water intake and discharge permits.
(Yes, we have a non-discharge system but in Texas you still have apply for and be approved for a discharge permit in part due to the 100 year flood elevation issues).
Our grow out protocol has us stocking our actual production ponds when our juvenile shrimp are five grams in size.
To grow the post larvae out to five grams when they arrive from the hatchery requires a juvenile rearing (JFR) and about 8-10 weeks, if everything is optimum. Juvenile shrimp actually like the water slightly warmer then the normal 79-82 degrees adult white shrimp prefer. We don't have a JRF for this single production module so we do that same work in one or two of the production ponds. Once we expand production we will quickly build a JRF.
Our system is designed to have the capacity to heat our water for those few weeks a year the temperatures and clouds combine to lower the pond temperature below acceptable levels. That boiler system is being installed as I write this.
In an open water system the lower range of temperatures may well have destroyed a significant number of the young shrimp. It would have completely stunted and stalled their growth. Because we are under greenhouse and we absorb the sun's radiation during the day and use reflective barriers on cool evenings our shrimp not only survived they keep right on growing.
In our shrimp shrimp generally grow 4 -5 times faster than in open ponds. In short because of the attention to the proper husbandry for our system our farm manager and his team maintained, when I got back to the site this morning after two weeks in Maryland and New York City and asked for a weight sampling, this is what I got.
In a single sample the smallest of these shrimp was about 5 grams. Right on schedule as we had planned. They are now ready for separation and stocking into the various grow out ponds.
As the cheetah in the "Frito's" commercial says, "Excellent, Sir".
Or to use another television phrase, "I love it when a plan comes together".
We are going to grow a lot of jumbo white shrimp this year.
Exciting.
