production

Sturgeon farmers producing fish for caviar would benefit hugely from a molecular-biological sex test for juvenile and adolescent sturgeons. Early sexual identification can significantly decrease production costs by increasing the number of females for caviar production while maintaining a balance of male animals for meat production and for use as brood stock. Additional advantages from the genomic analysis to determine sex could be the identification of genes implicated in growth, meat production, or egg quality (caviar) which opens the door for improvements in these areas. Currently, the normal male to female ratio in production facilities is approximately 1:1 through natural selection. If an early sex test is available, then this ratio could be manipulated to favour the production of either caviar or meat.