Incluye bibliografía.

Foreword -- Preface -- 1. Biology of duckweed -- 2. Duckweed farming -- 3. Duckweed-fed fish production -- 4. Economic and institutional issues -- 5. Duckweed-based wastewater: treatment systems -- 6. Alternative uses for duckweed, constraints and future research -- Annexes -- Selected bibliography -- Figures -- Tables -- Box.

This booklet introduces a group of tiny aquatic plants commonly known as " duckweeds " as a promising new commercial aquaculture crop. Duckweed species are ubiquitous, hardy, and grow rapidly if their needs are met through sound crop management. Aquaculture systems are many times more productive than terrestrial agriculture and have the potential to increase protein production at rates similar to increases of terrestrial carbohydrate crops realized during the Green Revolution. This paper summarizes current knowledge, gained from practical experience from the beginning of 1989 to mid-1991 in an experimental program in Mirzapur, Bangladesh, where duckweed cultivation was established and fresh duckweed fed to carp and tilapia. Like most aquatic plants, duckweed species have a high water content, but their solid fraction has about the same quantity and quality of protein as soybean meal. Fresh duckweed plants appear to be a complete nutritional package for carp and tilapia. Duckweed-fed fish production does not depend on mechanical aeration and appears to be significantly more productive and easier to manage than traditional pond fish culture processes. The economics of duckweed farming and duckweed-fed fish production and institutional factors that are likely to affect its wide-spread adoption as a commercial crop are discussed. Duckweeds are also used for stripping nutrients from wastewater.