Ecological farming system: facing climate change and turning to safe and accurate intelligent farming

It is not only the crops on the land that are constantly challenged by the extreme weather, but also the aquatic products in the aquaculture ponds. Sometimes a cold spell will affect the whole pond. A short-term heavy rainfall can also make the fish fish overflow the embankment, and only a few fish fry will be lost. Crops can rely on cultivation equipment to avoid wind, rain, diseases and insect pests. As for farmed fish, they have to rely on the Internet of things and artificial intelligence to help, combined with scientific and technological equipment such as sensors, wireless communications, monitors, and the use of biotechnology. It can make land-based aquaculture fisheries lower costs, better quality, and more controllable risks.

The Committee on Agriculture of the Executive Yuan officially launched the "Smart Agriculture 4.0" program in 2017 to help farmers and fishermen face the management challenges brought about by climate change with limited manpower. Among them, inland aquaculture, which accounts for about 40% of domestic fishery production, because most of them are still open-air aquaculture, unstable temperature, short-term heavy rainfall, associated fish diseases and drug risks make the management of aquaculture environment more difficult, indicating that the domestic aquaculture industry must introduce a more accurate management model. Two years ago, the Fisheries Experimental Institute of the Agricultural Committee of the Executive Yuan began to conduct research and experiments on intelligent agriculture, and invited the industry to participate in the plan, hoping to use big data, artificial intelligence, and the "big shot" technology of the Internet of things, to promote the aquaculture industry towards a scientific, efficient and more accurate mode of production.

The aquatic science and technology of Sparus macrocephalus, which was listed as the bright spot of intelligent aquaculture fishery demonstration field in 2019, has been put into the breeding of tilapia for nearly 40 years. Huang Yisheng, the second generation successor, smelled the management benefits brought by science and technology many years ago. starting with manual data collection in the field, setting up automatic sensing instruments to import Internet of things equipment, he gradually completed the mobile aerator and intelligent water quality monitoring system, saving 15% more electricity than in the past. What's more, only electronic vehicles are needed to manage fish ponds. Earlier, Sparus macrocephalus aquatic science and technology also transferred the molecular marker identification technology developed by the aquatic product test, which increased the breeding accuracy to 100% and effectively reduced the breeding cost invested in the breeding process. Recently, in addition to the HDPE ecological aquaculture system with monitoring facilities, Huang Yisheng has also focused on marine tilapia breeding technology, hoping to use aquaculture technology to stabilize the supply of high-quality protein sources when marine resources are exhausted.

Automatic monitoring system, Huang Yisheng manages fish fish with fingertips

San Sparus Aquatic Science and Technology supplies about 50 million Taiwan snapper seedlings in Taiwan every year. Huang Yi-sheng, 32, has been helping his family raise fish since junior high school. Seeing that his parents take care of fish fish almost all year round, he thinks that farming should not be just physical work. In fact, part of the work can be assisted by machinery and technology. Six years ago, he felt deeply that the climate was unstable. Without the assistance of an automatic monitoring system, he had to measure the water quality data of the fish fish every hour in order to grasp the changes in the pond. Later, in order to strengthen the monitoring frequency, he switched to a regular monitoring machine to help him lay the foundation for follow-up automatic management.

Huang Yisheng uses the bottom pipeline to connect the ecological pool next to it. One pond raises tilapia and the other pond raises Basha fish to create an ecological environment for circulating water culture.

"in fact, at first I just wanted to save electricity." Huang Yisheng said that through the monitor as another pair of eyes in his fish fish, he can do the right thing more accurately at the right time. For example, he found that at 3: 00 in the morning, because the air pressure is low and the value of dissolved oxygen in the water is also low, starting the vane water wheel can only allow the surface water to flow, which does not help to change the situation; but the scope of starting the disc water wheel is limited, and the fish will gather around the water wheel to cause urgency, so he cooperates with his father to design a movable aerator connecting device, so that the water wheel can move on the water surface and expand the dissolved oxygen area.

It is not enough to master the situation in the pond. there are also barometers, wind gauges, rainfall detection balls and other equipment in the two main culture areas to collect meteorological data. The data have a wide range of functions, such as the wind direction will affect the location of the water wheel, the water wheel in the wind is conducive to the spread of water, and the water wheel at the end of the wind will only waste electricity. Or the air pressure value that most people are familiar with also helps to assess the amount of dissolved oxygen in the pool. Huang Yi-sheng uses the concept of air pressure to explain the proverb, "if the south wind blows through the south, the fish will look up." it is precisely because the southerly wind with high temperature and low pressure will affect the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. the fish under the water will float for air because of lack of oxygen.

This aquaculture tank can be equipped with automatic monitors such as water quality and water temperature, and different data can be grasped on the monitoring panel to take appropriate measures.

However, Huang Yisheng admitted that these data are only in the past few years to produce the best results. About three years ago, with the help of his wife from the capital department, he achieved the result of managing the fish ponds without going out on patrol. His wife helped to catch the key factors and set the parameters. Through the PLC control system, the aerator and pump motor will be activated according to different values. This intelligent water quality monitoring system will help them save 15% of their electricity bills. In addition, the system platform on the mobile phone can also monitor the operation of various facilities. If there is suspected lightning, as long as you move your fingers, you can close the equipment to maintain the safety of the aquaculture pond. Huang Yisheng believes that the ultimate goal of these facilities is to save time and effort, so that the aquaculture industry is no longer physical work that is on standby 24 hours a day and can only rest in winter throughout the year. Farmers also have a better quality of life, "technology comes from human inertia," Huang Yisheng said.

In addition, in view of the pumping of groundwater in the aquaculture industry and the low temperature in winter, Huang Yisheng and his father also invested in the development of systematic aquaculture equipment and ecological aquaculture experiments. They designed a culture tank with thermal insulation effect by using plastic steel and HDPE (high density polyethylene) materials. because it is isolated from the soil and has a detachable structure, it is easy to move and can avoid deterioration of water quality caused by soil pollution. In the past four years, Huang Yisheng and his father also used this culture tank to carry out ecological culture experiments of recycled water, making use of the culture characteristics of different species to connect the culture tank and the culture pond to each other by pipeline. for example, the deposited and uneaten feed can flow from the pipeline to other ponds, using species such as shellfish with filter feeding function and Wu Guo fish with a wide tolerance to the culture environment to achieve the possibility of recycled water culture.

After years of data collection, development of automatic monitoring systems, improvement of aquaculture equipment such as water tankers and aquaculture tanks, Huang Yisheng has a set of standardized processes for aquaculture, which can give advice on facilities according to the culture environment of different customers. so that farmers can spend their money on the knife edge.

Molecular markers share a common language, and Taiwan sea bream breeding is more accurate.

The breeding of Sparus macrocephalus, which has been engaged in the breeding of tilapia for nearly 40 years, relies on experience and good eyesight, but it is still a long way from being 100% accurate, but with the support of molecular marker technology, the success rate of selecting target species can be close to 100%. It can not only reduce the culture cost of non-target species, but also effectively control and manage the performance cultivation of protected species and commercial species.

Zeng Fusheng, a researcher in the aquaculture group of the Aquaculture Research Institute who assists Sparus macrocephalus in learning molecular marker technology, explains: "the same technology can meet our research needs and can also be applied to their industrial management." Molecular marker technology is often used for disease detection or biological genetic research. Three years ago, when six pairs of marine tilapia TFS strain were transferred to the industry, the molecular marker of this strain was listed as one of the tracking items. When the operator crosses the offspring of this strain with other species of fish cultivated on the farm, they will eliminate the unsuitable species, and finally leave them to evaluate and decide that they are relatively suitable for producing marketable offspring. Then the aquaculture laboratory tracks the culture characteristics of these marketable offspring, recording the molecular markers that are considered by the industry to be good varieties, and when the operators see the specific markers, they will know that they are suitable for breeding. Zeng Fusheng said that molecular markers are like identity cards. If they are economical fish species, they have to leave good characteristics, and their appearance descriptions will vary, but with genetic assistance, objective judgments can be made.

Huang Yisheng has been helping his family raise fish since junior high school, and he can master the approximate number of fish fry at a glance.

Zeng Fusheng stressed that these recorded molecular markers only reflect commercial needs and do not necessarily have academic characteristics and definitions, but these data can help academia to further understand the relationship between molecular markers and culture traits. Fish species can also be tracked continuously through recorded molecular markers. In addition, through these data, when farmers respond to breeding or breeding problems, researchers will be able to communicate effectively with farmers and provide assistance, unlike in the past, farmers use their own set of appearance recognition vocabulary, which makes it impossible for researchers to understand.

Huang Yisheng mentioned that he had communicated with researchers earlier that they both had a set of terms for judging the selection of breeding fish, which was difficult to connect, but now they can communicate through molecular markers. "in the past, it was always seen with the naked eye and eliminated the unsuitable fish," he recalls. I thought it would be okay to choose the fish at the top of the pyramid, but it wasn't accurate enough. " Another advantage of molecular markers is that it can be operated when the fish is still young. By cutting a piece of fin and using PCR amplification technology to test, you can track the blood of the fish, judge the characteristics of its growth and control, increase the success rate of breeding by nearly 100%, and effectively save the cost of breeding.

At present, Sparus macrocephalus aquatic science and technology has fully mastered the breeding technology of sea water tilapia, only lack of suitable farms for stable production. Huang Yisheng believes that the demand for dissolved oxygen of tilapia is not as strict as that of white shrimp, and there are varieties that adapt to brackish water. The most important thing is that "plant protein can change meat". Under the dilemma of gradual depletion of marine resources, the prospect is good, so it will continue to expand facilities and technical capital for research and development. It is hoped that this tilapia, which is affordable to everyone, is not only a source of low unit price protein, but also has higher economic value through the upgrading of the breeding environment.

This article is reproduced from the June 2019 issue of Fengnian Magazine. "Harvest Magazine" e-book platform, please refer to: udn Reading Bar, TAAZE Reading Life, HyRead, Zinio, Huayi online Library, Kono