An Overview on Managing Minute Duckweed (Lemna Perpusilla Torr) Cultivation for Fish Feed Purpose

Feed is currently becoming a major problem in developing aquaculture sector. The use of aquatic plants has been pointed out for the resolution, as they can be easily produced while the nutrition value is reasonably good. One aquatic species, minute duckweed (Lemna perpusilla Torr.), is believed to be the solution. This species is abundantly distributed in tropical eutrophic waters. Although there has been some success of feeding fish on aquatic plants reported since a long time ago, little progress has been made for field implementation, as it has been hampered by the lack of knowledge on the proper and harmonious management of plant production to fulfill the fish requirement. This paper discusses a strategy to optimize the use of minute duckweed for feeding Nile tilapia fish. A scheme of integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) is proposed as a means of enhancing low-cost feed production, while simulations are performed to figure out the quantitative interconnection between the two commodities. Mass implementation of this integrated aquaculture scheme in Indonesia, however, faces a major problem of short land ownership, so institutional development is strongly needed, to encourage a segmentation farming activity as well as to set a fair play regulation that assures their business continuity.