Beef researchers in Texas are just a month away from producing a large number of embryos from recently cloned male and female cattle -- all part of an ongoing, historic project using Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) reproductive technology to create cloned calves.
The public-private partnership between West Texas A&M University and industry professionals is more than three years in the making, and researchers hope to successfully reproduce cattle from animals graded Prime, Yield Grade 1, the highest quality and most sought after animals in the beef industry.
Ideally the clones would be used to breed a line of cattle that could produce USDA’s highest grade beef in a shorter amount of time using fewer feed resources.
The researchers, led by Dean Hawkins, head of WTAMU’s Department of Agricultural Sciences, presented their findings to date in December at the Range Beef Cow Symposium in Rapid City, S.D.
Since 2010, the researchers have identified very few exceptional carcasses. "Of the 20 possible combinations of quality (Prime, Choice, Select, Standard) and yield (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) grades that occur within the young fed beef population, the probability of a Prime, yield grade 1 carcass is approximately 0.03 percent of the fed beef in the U.S. just 29 out of thousands of cattle carcasses rated as Prime, Grade Yield 1," they wrote.
"The progeny from this mating will be tested for DNA markers for carcass merit and growth efficiency. A portion of the resulting progeny will be feed at the university feedlot and slaughtered to determine their quality and yield grade," they added. "Additional cows will be inseminated with semen from Alpha or a purebred bull with known EPD’s to determine if Alpha is truly genetically superior."
The public-private partnership between West Texas A&M University and industry professionals is more than three years in the making, and researchers hope to successfully reproduce cattle from animals graded Prime, Yield Grade 1, the highest quality and most sought after animals in the beef industry.
Ideally the clones would be used to breed a line of cattle that could produce USDA’s highest grade beef in a shorter amount of time using fewer feed resources.
The researchers, led by Dean Hawkins, head of WTAMU’s Department of Agricultural Sciences, presented their findings to date in December at the Range Beef Cow Symposium in Rapid City, S.D.
Since 2010, the researchers have identified very few exceptional carcasses. "Of the 20 possible combinations of quality (Prime, Choice, Select, Standard) and yield (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) grades that occur within the young fed beef population, the probability of a Prime, yield grade 1 carcass is approximately 0.03 percent of the fed beef in the U.S. just 29 out of thousands of cattle carcasses rated as Prime, Grade Yield 1," they wrote.
"The progeny from this mating will be tested for DNA markers for carcass merit and growth efficiency. A portion of the resulting progeny will be feed at the university feedlot and slaughtered to determine their quality and yield grade," they added. "Additional cows will be inseminated with semen from Alpha or a purebred bull with known EPD’s to determine if Alpha is truly genetically superior."