The Royal Project was initiated by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand in 1969 and financed out of his royal offer to support research and development activities for the betterment of rural inhabitants in isolated highland areas in Northern Thailand. Since then many public and private agencies have responded enthusiastically to his royal initiative and concern, by joining to enhance and expedite the efforts of the Royal Project to fuller realize the ultimate objective of assisting the highland communities to stop destroying natural resources such as land and water and stop cultivating opium poppy with a substitution of alternative economically viable agricultural systems.

Trout is an economic fish spicies that can grow well in low temperature area. It is a source of various highly valuable food nutrients, and palatable diet ; and therefore is very popularly demanded for dishes at home as well as dining places. As highland area in northern Thailand generally has cool climate, it can be suitable for raising trout.

His Majesty had a keen interest to introduce trout raising in the northern highlands as a cash income source for the hilltribe people to enable them to abandon opium poppy cultivation. In 1973, a stock of trout was then brought from Canada for raising as a trial at Fang District’s Agricultural Experiment Station in Chiang Mai Province. Because the initial trial was not successful, the experimentation facility was moved to Doi Inthanon site. In 1997, American, German, Nepalese and Finnish trout eggs from Troutlodge Inc. USA, Rellechausen Farm of Gottinggen University, Nepal Agricultural Research Council and Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, were donated to the Royal Project Foundation, and the trial activities have been undertaken continually ever since until present. Trout raising in Thailand can be said to come from His Majesty’s initiative. The production of trout from the Royal Project farm is rang from 15-20 tons/years.

Red caviar is caviar from rainbows trout roe. In normal condition the parent trouts start produce their roe and milk when they reach 2 years old with small size of roes and these roe can not be a good caviar. The female trout have to rear 2 more years with high protein feed in cold water for caviar production. The best roe for red caviar processing have to get from 4 years old female trout. The red caviar from the Royal Project processing by using roe from mature female at the age of at least 4 years old. We selected the healthy female in late afternoon and stocked over night in cold airated running water to discard of fish fecal. The stripping roe from female trout was done early in the morning when the air temperature less than 15 ^oC. Roe were stripped from sleep female to prevent fish from injury and after stripping female fish were waked up by using the cold airated running water through their mouth and gill. These female can wake up and swim normally with in 1 minute. Then these roe were deep in salt water and peaked immediately to make sure that our caviar are as fresh as pure with out adding any preservation.

Thank you khunying Dr.Komut ounsrisong for sharing knowledge.