Experts predict that farmed swordfish is expected to be on the table next spring, with a price of about 200 to 300 per jin.

On the eve of the Qingming Festival, the output of swordfish fell to an all-time low this year, and some experts predicted that the swordfish would be wiped out within a decade. It is gratifying that the technicians of the Shanghai Fisheries Research Institute have taken the lead in breeding artificial swordfish in the country through seven years of efforts, and will be on the public dining table as early as next spring. "artificial breeding of a swordfish is just the beginning, and there is still a long way to go in the future." Shi Yonghai, director of the Seedling Technology Center of Shanghai Fisheries Research Institute, said.

The ideal price of artificial swordfish is 200 to 300 yuan per jin.

A few days ago, the reporter came to the seedling technology center in the May 4th Farm in Fengxian District. More than 50,000 ecologically farmed artificial swordfish were swimming quietly in these fish ponds.

The artificial breeding of swordfish was once called a "difficult problem in the world." as early as more than a decade ago, Jiangyin and other places began to study this subject one after another, but the strong personality of swordfish made them defeated again and again. Shanghai Fisheries Research Institute is the only place in the country where artificial swordfish has been successfully bred, and it has taken technicians seven years to get to this point. Last year, the Fisheries Research Institute and others carried out four batches of breeding of the first generation parents of the Yangtze River knife roe, with 123000 fry 4-5 centimeters long, Shi Yonghai said. Half of these fry will be released artificially, and the other half will come to the public dining table.

"the listing period of wild swordfish is concentrated within more than a month before the Qingming Festival, but artificially cultured swordfish can advance or delay the time to market by more than a month through appropriate adjustment of salinity, bait and temperature, and they can also eat soft-boned swordfish." Shi Yonghai said that they had measured the nutritional composition of ecologically farmed swordfish and found that the fat content was very similar to that of wild swordfish, while the protein content was higher than that of wild swordfish.

It is understood that the swordfish that can be put on the market next year weigh between one and two taels, and it is estimated that the growth cycle will take about four years to develop. According to the forecast, the amount of swordfish on the market for the first time will be very small, mainly for direct supply to restaurants, and basically will not shake the pattern of wild swordfish sales.

"the price will certainly be lower than that of wild swordfish." Shi Yonghai said that they believe that the ideal price is 200 to 300 yuan per catty, which will not only give farmers a certain profit margin, but also make fishermen lose interest in the increasingly difficult swordfish, thus protecting the Yangtze River swordfish population in another form.

Real industrialization still has a long way to go.

There is still a long way to go for a swordfish to go from the successful artificial breeding to the real public dining table. "600 swordfish were raised in a fish pond, but somehow there were some bass mixed in the fish pond. when we found it, there were only 50 swordfish left, resulting in heavy losses." On the other hand, the cost of ecological farming is also high, Shi Yonghai said. Swordfish taste tricky, only like to eat live fish and shrimp in the sea, dismissive of artificial feed. In addition, swordfish like to live spacious, high density is easy to get sick, one mu of pond can only raise 40 to 50 jin of swordfish, and indoor culture although the density can be dozens of times higher, but the taste of swordfish is very different.

"We don't want to turn the artificial swordfish into the next artificial big yellow croaker. Although it costs only 20 yuan per jin, it has a big belly and completely loses the delicacy of the wild big yellow croaker." Shi Yonghai said.

Even if large-scale farming is successful, it is not easy to be truly market-oriented. The fate of the Songjiang perch is a testament to the fact that technicians spent a lot of time and money to successfully breed the Songjiang perch, which has become extinct in the wild. However, due to limited production, high cooking requirements, high prices and other reasons, the development of Songjiang perch is facing an awkward situation.

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Looking back on the fate of the "three delicacies of the Yangtze River"

Swordfish, shad and puffer fish, also known as the "three delicacies of the Yangtze River", are world-famous delicacies, but the three are ill-fated.

The annual catch of the Yangtze River shad, which was 474.7 tons in Jiangyin in the mid-1950s, plummeted to 2.5 tons in 1983, and then disappeared. It is said that the last time Jiangyin saw wild shad was 20 years ago.

The highest annual output of puffer fish in the Yangtze River was 1958, and that year in Jiangyin City alone reached 132.9 tons. However, with the deterioration of the water quality of the Yangtze River and overfishing, it was nearly extinct in 1996. Over the past decade, cities along the Yangtze River have released a total of 8 million artificial puffer fish fry. In recent years, some fishermen have caught puffer fish in the Yangtze River.

In the Yangtze River swordfish, the catch in Jiangyin was 106 tons in 1987 and only 0.82 tons in 2009, setting a record low this year. Last year, Shanghai Fisheries Research Institute released 9000 artificially bred swordfish in the Yangtze Estuary for the first time, and this year plans to release another 30, 000. Shanghai will release swordfish every year in the future.