Rearing to go

New building for a new era but top team remain at the helm

The Marine Farming Unit at Ardtoe, located on the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula, was established by the White Fish in the UK. Over the years the site has developed the farming of several key marine species, including plaice, turbot, halibut, cod and haddock, with the emphasis more on applied research than on purely academic development.

unit in 2003 and it passed temporarily into the control of SAMS. Funding Council support did not materialise and Ardtoe was purchased by Viking Fish Farms.

Viking’s plan was to develop a pump ashore salmon recirculation unit but this did not go ahead and the unit was then taken on by Tim Atack and Jim Treasurer, who ran it for the next seven years.

As well as maintaining the unit’s traditional applied research activities, they also developed the commercial production of cod fry, but when cod farming collapsed, the commercial emphasis changed to the production of turbot fry for UK, Irish and later Dutch growers.

Throughout their aegis over the unit, the basic business model for Ardtoe remained in the running of a combination of production and research projects. Several EU initiatives, such as ECOFISH and NORHCOD, aimed at developing rearing methods for wrasse and cod respectively, were carried out by Atack and Treasurer.

of interest and production techniques were goldsinny wrasse, haddock, whiting and Pollack.

In later years, the unit also developed the