Crab king and queen claw their way to top
A new "hairy crab king" and "queen" are selected in Shanghai on Saturday.
A new "hairy crab king" and "queen" were selected in Shanghai on Saturday, with the best season for the tasty delicacy here.
This year's king and queen weigh 569.8 grams and 433.2 grams, and are from aquafarms in Jiangxi and Jiangsu provinces respectively.
Hairy crabs are considered a seasonal delicacy in China, and are at their best in autumn and early winter.
Organized by Shanghai Ocean University and Central Hotel Shanghai, this year's competition was the 16th edition. It featured more than 2,300 hairy crabs from nearly 100 aquafarms across the country, including 30 from Shanghai.
Crabs are measured for size, weight and taste.
The crabs were measured for size, weight and taste, while genes of the crabs were collected for breeding better species during the event.
Both the crab king and queen are lighter than those crowned last year, which were 644.74 grams and 473.6 grams.
Wang Chenhui, a professor from Ocean University, said this was because of the record long heatwave around China this summer, including 50 days, with temperatures at 35 degrees Celsius or higher.
"The hot weather did great harm to aquatic plants and water quality, which affected the growth of crabs," he said.
"Some crabs even failed to molt for the fourth time, once less than the usual process of crab life. Therefore, there are fewer male crabs weighing above 350 grams and females above 250 grams this year than previous years. It made the best season for tasting crabs a little bit late this year."
But he noted that temperatures varied more widely from day to night in the later period of crab life, and with support of enhanced crab raising technology, this year's crabs tasted better.
Genes of crabs are collected for breeding better species.
At one of the sideline events during the competition, Shanghai Ocean University signed an agreement with Taixing City of Jiangsu Province to support the city's hairy crab industrial chain development with scientific research, technology development and talent cultivation.
Shanghai is known as the home of Chinese mitten crabs. Locals started farming hairy crabs in 1968 when they sourced crab larvae at the Yangtze River Estuary in Chongming District for the first time.
It now has been expanded to districts of Songjiang, Baoshan, Qingpu and Jinshan, as well as the Pudong New Area, with 15,000 mu (1,000 hectares) under cultivation.
Its crab species "Jianghai 21," developed by the Shanghai Ocean University, is now welcomed nationwide.
The university has demonstrated its strength in the research of hairy crabs.
Its senior researchers, including Chen Ziying and Wang Tiansheng, were the first to discover spawning sites of Chinese mitten crabs at the Yangtze River Estuary in Chongming in the 1950s, kicking off research on and promoting crab cultivation technologies.
In 1974, a team led by Prof Liang Xiangqiu reproduced the process of crab larvae growth in the lab, making artificial breeding possible.
From 1973 to 1984, Zhao Naigang, an alumnus of the university, performed experiments on a remote island in a reservoir in Chuzhou City in Anhui Province and eventually invented an artificial brackish water formula and industrialized breeding technology. The discoveries won him the title of "the father of river crabs."
Hairy crabs are considered a seasonal delicacy in China, and are at their best in autumn and early winter.
From the 1990s, the university team led by top scientists such as Wang Wu and Li Sifa has been dedicated to crab breeding and cultivation research and related technology promotion. This has greatly improved the crab industry in China and helped with poverty alleviation.
At present, there are more than 50 teachers and graduate students at the university carrying on the cause.
