Company News
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Precision farming in aquaculture with accessible microbiome management A quaculture has an enormous potential to ensure food security in a sustainable way. Animal health and water quality are therefore crucial aspects. Frequent and unpredictable disease outbreaks are detrimental to farm yields. By better controlling the microbiome based on robust and detailed data, the industry can take the necessary next step towards sustainable and reproducible farming. KYTOS and I&V Bio are now joining forces to bring rapid sample logistics (I&V Bio) and local microbiome analysis (Kytos) to the six most important shrimp producing countries (Thailand, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Ecuador and Bangladesh). The partnership will install local and independent Kytos labs to serve aquaculture farms and hatcheries with cutting-edge high throughput microbiome management tools. The partnership combines I&V Bio’s long-standing expertise in serving aquaculture clients every single day of the year with Kytos’ novel microbial fingerprinting technology that brings a holistic view on the aquaculture microbiome health. Vietnam has been selected as the first country where a central sample collection point, equipped with Kytos’ automated microbiome analysis platform will be established. The other countries will follow swiftly.
Today, Kytos technology can already characterise most of the microbial life (fungi, bacteria and algae) in the water, sediment and shrimp of a pond. Functional indicators, devised using machine learning, connect these data to farm actions such as biofloc formation, water maturation, and microalgae blooms. This everexpanding list of indicators will help aquaculture farmers to shift the focus from mitigating diseases to an altogether improved management of the microbiome in their systems.
Frank Indigne (CEO, I&V Bio, left) and Ruben Props (CEO, KYTOS)
May/June 2022 AQUA Culture Asia Pacific
