Finfish Breeding and Hatchery Management

Unit 3 - Breeding of major carps

3.2. Induced breeding of warmwater finfishes and environmental factors affecting spawning

• Houssay (1930) of Argentina was the first to attempt induced breeding of fish by using pituitary extract on a viviparous fish. He was successful in obtaining premature birth of young fish.
• Subsequently, based on the lines of Houssay, Von Ihering and his team of Brazil, in 1934, successfully induced bred a catfish with pituitary hormones and hence credit for the present day concept of induced breeding of fish goes to Brazilians.
• In India, Chaudhuri and Alikunhi (1957) successfully induced major carps to spawn through hypophysation technique.
• Since then, the technique has been standardized and refined for the large-scale production of fish seed.
• The Indian Major Carp, which normally spawn once a year either naturally or through hypophysation during monsoon, were successfully induced bred twice within an internal of about two months.
• Chondar (1984;1990) described a method for the mass scale breeding of IMC and silver carp in `Bangla bundh’ through Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) and its combination with pituitary extract.
  

A major carp being injected with a spawning agent for induced breeding