Salmon can grow on low taurine feeds

Due to scarcity of fishmeal, which contains high levels of the sulphuric
amino acid taurine, today’s grow-out feed for Atlantic salmon contains up to 50
% plant protein.

Taurine is absent in plant proteins and salmons might be
short in taurine when fed such diets.

Research at NIFES shows that salmon
synthesizes taurine from ‘vegetable’ diets when levels of the amino acids
methionine and cystein are sufficient. Taurine is synthesized from these two
amino acids.

Feed trial
In a feed trial this was confirmed.
“When the requirement for methionine was met, methionine in excess was converted
into taurine,” says Marit Espe at the Aquaculture Nutrition Research Programme
at NIFES.

According to Espe salmons fed diets with low taurine plant
protein based diets have the ability to produce sufficient amounts of taurine
assuming that it is supplied with enough methionine. If the feed also contains
cysteine, the need for methionine is lower than previously
thought.

Recommended levels of methionine for Atlantic salmon range from
2.2 to 2.3 grams of methionine/100gram protein in the grow-out
feed.

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