RYLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. (AP) - Shrimp farmer Steve Price is pleased with this year's hot summer.
Price, a former president of the Kentucky Aquaculture Association, saw the recent scorching months help fatten the freshwater shrimp at Bluegrass Shrimp Farm.
Price says hot weather makes the shrimp grow because they eat more.
They sell for about ten-dollars per pound.
Kentucky has about 28 shrimp farms throughout the state.
Jim Tidwell, coordinator of Kentucky State University's aquaculture program, says the Prices were among the earliest farmers to make the switch from tobacco to aquaculture. And, they've been at it for 13 years now.
Bluegrass Shrimp Farm's ponds were stocked in early June with several thousand juvenile prawns purchased from Thoroughbred Shrimp in Frankfort, with a projected yield of one-thousand pounds at harvest. Although a freshwater prawn can grow to as much as a quarter-pound, Tidwell says, one pound typically equals about 10 head-on prawns.
Tidwell says Kentucky's limestone water and moderate climate make it a good place to raise shrimp.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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