It was slightly overcast with a temperature in the low 60's when my neighbor, Rich, and I headed down N highway east of Centertown to help a friend, Jesse, with his harvest this morning. It was unlike any other harvest I had ever witnessed.
In June, Jesse had dumped 8000 dime-sized prawns into a special pond he constructed to grow fresh water prawn. Though the goal is for the prawn to get as big as possible, it is important to harvest the them before the water temperature falls below 60 degrees, the minimum temperature needed for the prawns to survive.
At 4:45 AM Sunday morning Jesse had placed two traps in a narrow spillway below the pond and opened the floodgate to drain the pond. When Rich and I arrived, several friends and neighbors were observing the operation and kids were playing in the deep mud that had been covered by pond water only a few hours earlier.
As the traps filled with shrimp, the front trap was removed, emptied onto a scale, and the shrimp were weighed and then placed in clean water. That trap was then placed back in the spillway and the process repeated with the second trap. Last year Jesse purchased 4000 baby prawns and harvested 243 pounds of adult prawns. This year he hoped to double that production with several restaurants already having ordered 100 lbs each.
As the water drained, Jesse and another friend got on opposite sides of the pond and dragged a seine through the remaining water to herd the prawns to the spillway. It is not an easy job keeping your balance in the mud while walking slowly along the steep banks from one end of the pond to the other, but it paid off with more traps filled with large prawns. Behind the men with the seine the kids played in the mud and caught straggler prawn with dip nets. Meanwhile, Jesse's friends and neighbors visited while watching the process. Many seem to share my sentiment that they were not afraid of hard work and could watch it for hours.
I had to leave before the harvest was completed but a couple of hours later I got a call from Rich. The harvest had netted 278 pounds of prawn and one unlucky bullfrog. At an approximate weight of 3 ounces each, I figure around 1500 of the original 8000 baby prawn survived to be harvested. Not bad, I suppose, but not enough to fill the orders for fresh prawn from area restaurants. And a little disappointing since only 4000 baby prawn had resulted in a harvest of 243 pounds of adult prawn last year.
Prawn farming is rife with perils. Improper water pH or temperature or predators can sharply reduce a harvest. Even other prawns can reduce a harvest since they are territorial and will try to kill any prawns that invade their territory. Birds, snakes and even our State amphibian all love a tasty meal of freshwater prawns.
"What is our State amphibian?" you might ask. It's the American Bullfrog, whose deep throaty call is described on the Secretary of State's website as "jug-of-rum, jug-of-rum".
That may be the same call Jesse puts out after his 2012 prawn harvest.
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