Chinese mitten crab (eriocheir sinensis), commonly known as river crab, hairy crab, hairy crab, etc., is the most important farmed crab and a prestigious delicacy in China. Chinese crab food culture has a long history, and eating crabs has a history of more than 5,000 years. The delicacy of crabs has always been appreciated and sought after by literati: such as Li Bai's "crab claws are gold liquid, and the bad hill is Penglai", Lu You's "crab fat is temporarily salivating, and the wine is green at the beginning of the old eyes", Su Dongpo's "Don't live up to Lushan, don't eat crabs to live up to your belly", and Cao Xueqin pushed crab culture to the extreme in "Dream of Red Mansions", combining crab tasting with chrysanthemum appreciation and poetry, and properly turned crab eating into a cultural festival.
The natural shallow lakes in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China are rich in wild river crabs and of good quality, so there are many regional river crab brands based on lakes. In addition to the world-famous Yangcheng Lake crab, there are Taihu Lake crabs, Changdang Lake crabs, Hongze Lake crabs, Gucheng Lake crabs and Gaoyou Lake crabs. Changdang Lake is located in the southeast of Jintan District, Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, in the upper reaches of Taihu Lake and Yangcheng Lake, with a flat bottom and an average water depth of 11~1.2 meters, suitable for the large water surface of river crabs to multiply and release. Jintan District is one of the main river crab production bases in Jiangsu Province, enjoying the reputation of "the national river crab looks at Jiangsu, and the river crab in Jiangsu looks at Jintan", and has formed a new pattern of 120,000 acres of Changdang Lake large water surface breeding and release, human release and 150,000 acres of river crab ponds around Changdang Lake. In recent years, Jintan District and Shanghai Ocean University have carried out in-depth integration of production and education, and selected new varieties of river crabs suitable for breeding in Changdang Lake and their supporting technologies, which have significantly improved the breeding efficiency and brand awareness of river crabs in Changdang Lake.
The strong "Changdang Lake No. 1" river crab is climbing over the fence Zhang Guangbao |Absorb.
Changdang Lake river crab "small, fine and high" breeding mode
The history of river crab farming in Changdang Lake area can be traced back to the 80s of the 20th century, with the early "net enclosure fish and crab polyculture", and then gradually developed to the large water surface model of "human release and natural breeding", to the current pond ecological intensive culture model. Through more than 30 years of continuous practice, we have explored the "small fine high" model of "small breeding area, fine management, and high output efficiency". This model has solved a series of problems such as water waste caused by large-scale aquaculture and extensive management, low breeding efficiency and water environment pollution, changed the situation of "extensive planting and thin harvest" of the extensive aquaculture model, and improved the aquaculture output and economic benefits under the premise of ensuring the specifications of commercial crabs. At present, the "small and high" model has accounted for more than 60% of the total breeding area of Jintan river crabs, and the average benefit per mu has increased to 12,000 yuan, which has been popularized and applied in most of the main production areas of river crabs in the country.
"Changdang Lake No. 1" river crab under the ecological breeding mode of "Xiaojinggao" Zhang Guangbao |Absorb.
Progress in the selection and breeding of "Changdang Lake No. 1".
Because the river crab seedling enterprises mainly randomly select parents in the market according to their body weight for artificial propagation, resulting in inbreeding or germplasm mixing, there are problems such as unstable breeding effect, small size of commercial adult crabs, low survival rate and reduced disease resistance. Therefore, it is necessary to select and breed river crab varieties suitable for the "small, fine and high" mode in this area according to the breeding mode and natural conditions in Changdang Lake. Since November 2017, the research team of Professor Wu Xugan of Shanghai Ocean University has carried out the breeding of new varieties of river crabs "Changdang Lake No. 1" in the Aquatic Technology Promotion Center of Jintan District. 
At present, "Changdang Lake No. 1" has established two breeding groups, and the breeding activities are carried out in both even-numbered and odd-numbered years, among which the "Changdanghu No. 1" A line has a high survival rate (survival rate greater than 65%, female parents greater than 200 g, male crabs greater than 300 g) and high density tolerance (stocking density of 1 600 crabs per mu) as the breeding goal, and the "Changdanghu No. 1" B line has been selected to the third generation (G3) with large size (parental females greater than 250 g, male crabs greater than 350 g) as the breeding target Crab breeding stage. The survival rate of the first generation of adult crabs was 78% and 67%, respectively, the size of a single male was 168 g and 176 g, and the survival rate and specification of line A were increased by 229% and 117%, and the survival rate and specification of the B line increased by 5., respectively5% and 219%。Reproductive performance, genetic diversity and minimum population size were evaluated for each breeding generation, and more than 30 river crab breeding families were constructed using the "Changdang Lake No. 1" breeding population, and the heritability of the body weight, color, carotenoids and main nutritional indicators of the breeding population was determined, and a 20K "Changdang Lake No. 1" SNP breeding chip has been developed. 
Changdang Lake No. 1" A line and B line breeding group Zhang Guangbao |Absorb.
Breeding progress of Changdang Lake No. 1 in the adult crab breeding stage (average size).
Future outlook
It is an effective way to enhance the economic value and brand awareness of river crabs in Changdang Lake and promote the green transformation of the river crab breeding industry by selecting new varieties of river crabs suitable for breeding in Changdang Lake and improving the core competitiveness of the "small, fine and high" crab farming model. With the advancement of the "Changdang Lake No. 1" river crab breeding work, the technologies of male and female river crab breeding, aquatic weed planting, "June Yellow" breeding, functional feed research and development and full compound feed crab breeding are becoming more and more mature, which will give wings to the high-quality development of Jintan river crab industry.
Adult crab breeding ponds are combed with aquatic weeds.
The river crab breeding research base uses drones to feed compound feed.
Changdang Lake No. 1 "high-quality crab screeningRelated Articles:
Zhuang Zhenjun, Zhang Dongdong, Jiang Xiaodong, Chen Wenbin, Cheng Yongxu, Wu Xugan*Preliminary evaluation of the breeding performance of the adult crab of the first generation of Chinese mitten crab "Changdang Lake No. 1"[J].South China Fisheries Science, 2021, 17(3): 27-35
Click "Read More" below to learn more. Written by |Zhang Guangbao, Wu Xugan.
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