New Products Under Development

In response to demands from the tilapia culture industry Fishgen is developing a number of new product lines.

Red tilapia GMT^®:

YY males have been developed in a pure red strain of O. niloticus.         
This is a popular strain of red tilapia already being grown in many countries. The Red GMT^® will be available in the second half of  2002.

Pearl GMT^®:

A new colour variety has arisen in one of the stocks of pure O. niloticus held in the U.S.A. known as "Pearl". This is a whitish coloured fish with a very attractive appearance. Unlike red tilapia the Pearl has a clean uniform colour with no black markings. We still need to study the inheritance of this colour mutation so true breeding Pearl GMT^® are unlikely to be available before 2003.

O. mossambicus GMT^®:

A small number of YY males have been produced in two strains of wild caught O. mossambicus (known as the black tilapia) in South Africa. These O. mossambicus have considerably more genetic variance than those used in aquaculture today and are anticipated to have much superior growth rates to current aquaculture stocks of this species. O. mossambicus GMT^® should be available by late 2002 and will be of great interest to farmers in regions in which introduction of the Nile tilapia is prohibited.

Reversibly Sterile Tilapia:

One of Fishgen's partner organisations is developing a fast growing strain of tilapia which is reversibly sterile. Extensive testing is yet to take place but we envisage that these fish could be available by 2003.