Tilapia has become one of the most widely farmed fish in the world, which also means disease is one of the biggest challenges producers face. A recent feature on The Fish Site, written by aquaculture extension specialist Prof. C. Greg Lutz, looked at how breeding programs across the industry are working to build fish that are naturally more resistant to common illnesses, and Spring Tilapia's own program was part of that conversation.
The piece pointed to Spring Tilapia's development of a line known as SGG12, bred with added resistance to a bacterial disease that had been affecting tilapia farms across Latin America. CEO and Co-Owner Hideyoshi Segovia Uno explained that the goal was to protect fish health without giving up the growth and performance farmers rely on, developed through a collaboration that included partners in Colombia, the USDA, and Benchmark Genetics Norway.
Segovia Uno also spoke about the bigger picture behind the work: an ongoing effort to keep improving disease resistance across multiple challenges tilapia farmers face, not just one. He noted that the team tackles each disease separately, since resistance to one doesn't always carry over to another, using genetic tools to guide those decisions without sacrificing growth along the way.
He also touched on how those improvements reach farmers of different sizes, from small operations to large integrated producers, through a distribution network built to get better genetics into more hands.
A note for longtime followers: this feature was published under the Spring Genetics name. The company has since rebranded as Spring Tilapia, though the breeding program and the team behind it remain the same.
Read the full feature on The Fish Site.