Texas aquaculture remains steady despite seasonal challenges of drought and excessive heat faced by many producers, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert.
“Not much new has happened in Texas aquaculture in the last year — no new farms, no new species added, no new laws or regulations — and production is pretty normal across all industries,” said Todd Sink, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension aquaculture specialist and director of the Texas A&M AgriLife Aquatic Diagnostics Laboratory, Bryan-College Station.
While some producers have added new ponds to their facilities, the additions were not large-scale enough to cause industry-wide impacts, said Sink, also a professor in the Texas A&M Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management.
Current industry status
Texas is home to 130-135 aquaculture producers across the state with roughly 6,200 acres in production and annual farm-gate sales exceeding $120 million.
The state remains the national leader in red drum and hybrid striped bass production, and a top five producer of catfish and crawfish.
Summer heat and drought bring challenges
Most aquaculture production is concentrated in Southeast and Northeast Texas, Sink said. Both regions have faced an abnormally dry, hot summer, forcing producers to contend with increased water evaporation and the challenges it introduces.
“The drought has resulted in increased water evaporation and usage, raising production costs,” he said. “The heat has increased evaporation and led to some fish and shrimp losses – primarily due to low dissolved oxygen as a result of hot water temperatures.”
Sink said some lined ponds can lose up to 3 inches of water to evaporation each day.
This ongoing heat and evaporation also concentrates nutrients in the remaining water, promoting harmful algal blooms.
“Many of our producers are having increased issues with harmful algal blooms like cyanobacteria this year, and a couple of ponds have reported losses,” he said.
The loss of even one pond on an aquaculture farm translates to substantial financial loss.
“Think about an 8-acre pond of hybrid striped bass that can hold $600,000 worth of fish,” Sink said. “You lose that one pond, and you’re looking at a half-million-dollar loss.”
When harmful algal blooms are caught in time to prevent large-scale loss, Sink said treatment is still costly.
Ongoing trend of increased production cost
Sink said the recent expenses incurred from seasonal weather are in addition to the broader trend of rising production costs and thinner profit margins, especially for catfish producers.
“Overall, production has been good, so this really hasn’t resulted in any major loss in production volume, but it does increase production costs, which pinches the farmer’s profit and results in increased costs for end consumers,” he said.
Panhandle
Extreme drought continued across the district as heat held and rainfall stayed negligible. Very light rain fell in some areas and small scattered showers reached parts of the district, but not enough to improve conditions. Topsoil and subsoil moisture levels were very short to adequate. Corn was 40% mature and 20%-60% dented, with the first fields being chopped for silage. Sorghum was coloring, cotton had essentially finished setting bolls, and winter wheat planting was barely started. Corn was in very poor to poor condition and cotton very poor to fair. Pasture, rangeland and livestock conditions were very poor to good.
