COMPARATIVE ECONOMIC VIABILITY ANALYSES OF INTEGRATED AND POLY CULTURE SYSTEM OF PRAWN (MACHROBRACHIUM ROSENBERGII) PRODUCTION

Abstract

The present study was conducted to assess the effects of integrated culture on Prawn (Machrobrachium rosenbergii) production compared with the prawn polyculture system, in terms of production and financial profitability and viability. In the polyculture system, prawn were incorporated with rohu (Labeo rohita), mola (Ambypharyngodon mola), snail (Pila golobosa), and in case of the integrated culture system with three treatments (T1, T2 and T3), prawn, rohu, mola, snail were cultured with integrating vegetables: the T1 had dike-vegetables (brinjal,lady finger, tomato); , the T2 had hanging vegetable (bottle gourd; sponge gourd), and floating vegetables (kolmi, helencha); the T3 had floating-bed vegetables (tomato, onion; yardlong beans, capsicum, chili). The prawns were cultured for 240 days with feeding of commercial feed at the rate of 8% of body weight. The production of prawn in the integrated culture system was 712.34±15.623, 714.36±14.77 and 741.98±15.39 kg/ha whereas 646.90±19.36 kg/haprawn in the polyculture. Dike vegetable tomato, lady finger and brinjal were produced 416.67, 916.67 and 104.2kg/ha respectively; hanging vegetables guard and sponge guard were produced 666.63 and 583.43 kg/ha respectively; floating vegetables Kolmi and helencha were produced 333.3 and 625 kg/ha respectively and floating bed vegetables onion and hybrid long beans was 291 and 390 kg/ha. It has been evident that the integrated culture system had higher prawn production than had the polyculture system. The net revenue from integrated culture system was 436015.7, 41153505 and 420018.4 TK in the T1,T2, and T3, respectively and 322837 TK in the polyculture system, addressing the profitability of integrating vegetables in the prawn multi-trophic culture system.The resultant information has pointed out the suitability of integrating prawn, finfish, snail and vegetables, which can be an eco-friendly (i.e. bio mitigation intervention) system for fulfilling household nutrition by regular consumption as well as for earning money by selling.