From China they affirm that in the Autonomous Region of Ningxia Hui, successfully cloned three cows with highly desired traits.
The first successful effort by Chinese scientists aims to collect, restore and conserve the germplasm resource of “super cows”, capable of produce 18 tons of milk a year and more than 100 tons in his lifetime.
According to the Chinese newspaper Global Times, the first calf at birth weighed 56.7 kilograms and was 76 centimeters tall and 113 centimeters tall, and wore the exact shape and skin pattern of his cloned target, according to Northwest A&F University.
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The calf, along with two others, came from cloned targets bred on different farms in China.
The leader of the project, Jin Yaping, told the Global Times that the breakthrough is of great importance “for China to focus and preserve in an economically viable way the best cows of the country, and is a success in the country’s efforts to revitalize its agricultural sector with vital seeds and breeding stock.”
According to the university press release, China depends on a 70% of purchases abroad for his herd of dairy cows.
The Chinese stock is 6.6 million cows of the highly productive Holstein breed, which have been imported over the years. They estimate that only 5 out of 10,000 of these animals in China are highly productive, long lasting and stress resistant.
According to JIn Furthermore, some “super cows” were not identified until near the end of their lives and their genes were lost as they died, which is a loss to the country. Furthermore, since the cows are scattered among farms throughout China, breeding becomes technically difficult.
on-demand cloning
The new method means that people can preserve the genes of these super cows in a timely manner, produce a concentrated herd of super cows and provide excellent resources for the future breeding and selection of China’s proprietary super cows, Jin told the Chinese media.
The scientist announced that “we plan to take two to three years to build a herd made up of more than 1,000 super cows, as a solid foundation to address China’s reliance on overseas dairy cows and the problem of the risk of being ‘suffocated’”.
LM / ds
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