Making Fish Food in the Rice Fields

Winter research season in the Central Valley is a muddy affair. We are meeting up with CalTrout Central Valley Regional Manager, Jacob Montgomery, for a tour of a few different research sites for the Fish Food on Floodplain Farm Fields (Fish Food) Project along the Sacramento River. The Fish Food Project is a management program that grows fish food (aquatic bugs and zooplankton) on farm fields and managed wetlands and then pumps that floodplain water, rich in those bugs and other nutrients, back into the river where the fish are. The floodplain water reconnects the river (and the starving fish confined within its leveed banks) with floodplain-derived food web resources. All the research project test sites are located along the muddy banks of the main river or in farming field canals.

[scottybeck]

Cool work. What growth rates are you seeing? I think for kamloop rainbows, they have growth of around 7 inches /year the first two years and then it slows down from there. Curious what other salmonids do.