Red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) is a meadow and pasture species in natural habitats and also a cultivated species used for animal nutrition. The aim of this research was the assessment of the ...diversity of 46 red clover accessions based on morpho-productive traits. The traits were investigated according to the UPOV descriptors for red clover-number of internodes, number of branches, stem length, stem thickness, middle leaflet length, middle leaflet width, green matter yield and dry matter yield. The principal components analysis (PCA) explained 74% of the variance of the standardized data and showed relationships between 46 red clover accessions and eight morpho-productive traits, associations among traits and performance of accessions. Among the determined Euclidean distances, the smallest value was obtained for the accessions Rotra and Titus (0.048), the largest value was 1.099 for a pair of NCPGRU2 and Čortanovci accessions, and the average value was 0.380. Two clusters of 46 red clover accessions were separated in the dendrogram based upon UPGMA (Unweighted Pair-Group Method with Arithmetic mean) for eight morpho-productive traits. The first cluster included two subclusters, while the second cluster contained four subclusters. The grouping of the accessions from the red clover collection by the UPGMA cluster analysis can be linked to the geographical origin of the accessions: central and Southern Europe for three subclusters and northeastern Europe for one subcluster.
Improving the progress of breeding is the main purpose of breeders, and shorting the reproductive cycle is one of the ways to improve the breeding progress. Although the reproductive cycle of
...Crassostrea angulata
can be shortened from one year to half a year by selecting precocious individuals, little is known about whether this selection will accelerate their gonadal development or disturb their selection for productive traits. Here, the heritability of gonadal development traits (gametogenic stage and egg diameter) and their genetic correlations with both growth traits (shell height at 4 and 12 months and total body weight at 12 months) and heat tolerance trait were estimated. The heritability for gametogenic stage was low (0.18 ± 0.09), while the egg diameter showed a high heritability (0.78 ± 0.30). These results suggest that selection for precocious individuals has little effect on the rate of gonadal development in the
C. angulata
, despite the effect may be greater in females than in males. The genetic correlations between gonadal development traits and both growth (-0.02–0.30) and heat tolerance traits (-0.08–0.34) were low and non-significant. These results suggest that selection for precocious individuals has negligible effects on their productive traits. Therefore, it is feasible to double the breeding efficiency of
C. angulata
by halving their reproductive cycle.
This study aimed to estimate the heterosis for productive traits in a two-way crossbreeding scheme. Four guinea pig lines were originally selected for the following traits: line P1 for the growth ...rate, P2 for the partial feed conversion rate, M1 for the growth rate of the litter at 10 days of age, and M2 for the litter size at birth. The comparison included 176 purebreds (P1: 46, P2: 43, M1: 54 and M2: 33) and 150 crosses (P1P2: 42, P2P1: 38, M1M2: 11 and M2M1: 59); body weights at birth, 10 days, weaning and 60 days of age were analyzed. A linear fixed-effect model was used, and heterosis was estimated as the difference between the average performance of the crossbred and pure-line animals. The pure line comparisons showed that P2 was lower than P1 for weight at 10 days and weaning weight, while all other comparisons between the paternal and maternal pure lines were not significant. The results indicated significant positive heterosis effects for both types of crosses, but only for birth weight: 3.7% for paternal crosses and 12.7% for maternal crosses. The heterosis estimates were mostly positive but not significant for all other traits. A reason for the low levels of heterosis could be that the lines are not very genetically differentiated. These results suggest that applying a two-way crossbreeding scheme within paternal and maternal guinea pig lines for meat production is not recommended due to the absence of heterosis for growth traits.
Abstract
Between the dates of 9/18/2019 and 10/23/2019, researchers from the Animal Production Department at the College of Agriculture at Al-Qasim Green University will carry out their study. There ...were 240 Ross 308 chickens employed in the study. The baby chicks were split into four groups for the various experiments. The following parameters of drinking water were examined when a suspension of leaves extract was added at concentrations of 0, 3, 5, and 7 ml/liter: body mass index, feed intake, feed conversion ratio, and mortality rate The results demonstrated that the average live body weight, total weight increase, and feed intake of the broilers were significantly enhanced by supplementing their diet with an aqueous extract of Origanum vulgare leaves. Both the feed conversion factor and the mortality rate were rather constant throughout all trials.
Data pertaining to 3,977 records collected over a period of 29 years for Friesian cows were utilized for the present study. Records were analyzed for actual total milk yield (TMY), 305-day milk yield ...(305d-MY), lactation period (LP) and days open (DO) by VCE 6.0 software while, selection indices (SI) using one phenotypic standard deviation as REV1 and Lamont method as REV2. Estimates of direct heritability were low and ranged from 0.02 to 0.23 while, maternal heritability were low and ranged from 0.03 to 0.028. The correlation coefficients between all studied traits were highly significant and ranged between 0.82 to 0.93. The results indicated that reducing interval of days open (DO) could be brought about by improving the farm managerial aspects. The selection criteria of different indices proved that the index I1which incorporated TMY, 305d-MY, LP and DO was the best (RIH = 0.49) and (RE % = 100.00). This index could effectively anticipate in genetic improvement of all the traits of the study; I1 = 0.144 (TMY) + 0.503 (305day/MY) + 1. 619 (LP) + 1.150 (DO). The application of this index I1 led to a predictive genetic gain of TMY, 305d-MY, LP and DO by 359.4 kg, 279.5 kg, 15.3 days and 3.2 days, respectively. The correlation coefficient between I1 and the total economic value was 0.49 while, the heritability estimate of the index was 0.86. Conclusively, such an index can help the investor in the field of dairy cattle to select the best animals in early lactation and in subsequent generation’s traits as well; which leads to an increase in economic return.
This paper aims to determine the frequencies of MC4R/Taq I genotypes and alleles in Danish Landrace (LD), Canadian Landrace (LC) and crossbred pigs DL x CL in breeding Cent "Plemzavod Jubilee" Russia ...and to estimate their associations with some growth and meat traits. The polymorphism was identified by PCR-RFLP method. The traits studied were: Number of days to 100-kg, Average Daily Gain (ADG), Backfat Thickness (BFT), average daily Feed Intake (FI) and Length of Body (LB). In the all test groups, the authors found a higher frequency of G allele (0.71) compared with the A allele (0.29). The results of present study suggest that the MC4R gene contributes to Days to 100 kg, ADG and BF. The significant effects of-1.43 (LD male) and -2.81(LD female) for Days to 100 kg and of+61.17 (LD male) and +26.3 (LD female) for ADG were calculated. Therefore, the data support a role for the MC4R Asp298Asn polymorphism in the genetic basis of economically important traits in pigs of Russia.
The delivery of genome sequences for most livestock species over the past 10–15 years has generated the potential to revolutionise livestock production globally, by providing farmers with the ability ...to match individual animals to rapidly changing climates, production systems and markets. Initially, technologies such as marker-assisted selection, functional genomics, gene expression, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics were hailed as technologies with the greatest promise of delivering on that potential. To date, however, their potential for the delivery of practical solutions for livestock farmers is still to be realised, though they do provide supportive evidence of value to other approaches. Gene editing using tools such as CRISPR-Cas9 also show strong promise, but face regulatory hurdles before practical applications can be delivered for use by farmers. The technology that has had the greatest impact to date is genomic selection. This year marks 20 years since genomic selection was developed by Meuwissen, Hayes and Goddard (Genetics, 2001, 157: 1819-1829) and genomic selection has been successfully applied in livestock, plants and even human health applications. However, genomic selection also faces ongoing limitations around lack of essential phenotypes, particularly for expensive or difficult-to-measure traits and possibly the need for faster/greater computational capacity. It is therefore timely to examine the impact of genomic technologies generally, and to identify successes and limitations that need to be overcome in order to achieve practical applications for livestock producers in future.
Laying hen rearing systems have been the focus of scientific research for many years. Over the last few decades, new laying hen rearing systems have been rapidly introduced in an effort to harmonise ...poultry health and welfare with consumer, producer, industry and environmental demands. Given the above situation, the subject matter of this paper was a comparative review of the results obtained by different authors on the effect of rearing system on productive traits (egg production and mortality) and egg quality characteristics (egg weight, proportions of main egg parts, Haugh units, yolk colour and carotenoids) in laying hens. Although productive performance in alternative systems is often lower compared to conventional, intensive layers, eggs from alternative systems have been proven in numerous studies to have better nutritional properties. Moreover, research results indicate differences within rearing systems. In view of this, this overview of the literature on the use of different rearing systems in table egg production can serve as a tool in determining the future direction of research as well as an indicator of its practical application.
Buckwheat is an economically important gluten free cereal, and it is a good source of protein, fiber, and energy. The field experiments with buckwheat variety “Novosadska” were set in two ...experimental years in Pancevo, Serbia. The aim of this study was to determine the most optimal technology for buckwheat production. The study aims were to investigate the effects of (1) row spacing: RS1-25 cm and RS2-50 cm; (2) nutrition variants: (N1) 0 kg ha−1 NPK; (N2) NPK 30 kg ha−1; (N3) NPK 60 kg ha−1; and (N4) NPK 90 kg ha−1; (3) environment: Y1-2018 and Y2-2019; and their interactions on the plant height (PH), number of lateral branches (NoLB), mass of seeds per plant (MSP), number of seeds per plant (NoSP), buckwheat grain yield (GY); and (4) the correlations among these traits. All tested parameters of buckwheat significantly varied across row spacing, environment, and nutrition. The average grain yield in the row spacing, RD1-25 cm, was significantly higher than in the wider spacing, RD2-50 cm, and in 2018 than 2019 as well as with the nutrition NPK applied in the amount of 90 kg ha−1 in relation with all the other nutrition variants. All the studied agronomic traits were positively and strongly correlated with GY.
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