SEAFDEC News

MALAYSIA - Crop breeding and aquaculture in Malaysia have received a boost with the news that a facility using DNA to improve plants and seafood will be established in the country. The Centre for Marker Discovery and Validation (CMDV) will speed up studies of plant and animal genomes, and accelerate the development of Malaysia's agriculture and aquaculture industries.

The centre will use marker-assisted selection (MAS) technology, a method that detects short sequences of DNA — or markers — that are inherited together with genes, to determine whether a seed has a desired gene.

This speeds up breeding improvement because favourable strains are identified without having to go through the long process of breeding species and then observing the traits the offspring inherit. This cuts the time to achieve the desired results to two years instead of the usual 5–6 years, said Dato' Mohd Nazlee, chief executive officer of BiotechCorp, a government science agency involved with the venture.

PHILIPPINES - The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in coordination with the local gov-ernment here will launch next week the first mariculture farm in Sulu as part of the national government commitment to help the people in remote areas alleviate their poor living condition. BFAR Mariculture Specialist Perfector I Orbita said an initial amount of P2.5-million have been infused for the establishment of the farm at Tara island in this town covering an estimated sea area of 300 hectares.

Of the total area, 50 hectares will be used for seaweed nursery, 150 hectares for sea ranching, 70 hectares for pearl oyster culture and 30 hectares for fish cage, the BFAR mariculture specialist said. Orbita said the farm consists of 32 fish cages for high valued fish and 50 concrete blocks for mooring sites.