Commercial sturgeon farming in Russia (review)

The review contains a brief description of the history of sturgeon aquaculture development in Russia, information on the main directions of Russian sturgeon aquaculture: artificial propagation of natural populations and commercial farming with an explanation of the cause-and-effect relationships between the formations of these two directions. Much attention is paid to a special way of creating biotechnology for commercial sturgeon farming in the Russian research space, associated with a unique concentration of the most powerful sturgeon populations in the Caspian Sea basin. The main production systems for sturgeon rearing, biotechnical features of working with brood stocks, requirements for sturgeon feeds, the state of breeding work in sturgeon farming and the main difficulties in creating new cultured strains in sturgeon farming are characterized. It is shown that at the present stage, the bulk of commercial products in sturgeon farming is produced using industrial production systems in cages and tanks, while pond farming of sturgeon is still used in Russia. The use of different production systems has species specificity: large sturgeon species are reared mainly in cage conditions using artificial compound feeds, while the aquaculture of American paddlefish is represented exclusively by the pond production systems without feeding, small sturgeon fish (sterlet) are often grown in tanks with recirculating water exchange. Data on the structure of the assortment of commercial products in different sturgeon production systems are provided: fish stocking material of various categories, caviar and fish meat, as well as replacement and breeding stock. The current list of cultured strains of sturgeons in Russia is considered in detail, indicating new trends. The characteristics of the production volumes of caviar and meat, as well as the types of commercial products from them are given.