Genetic divergence studies on reproduction and production traits among Gir crosses

The study was undertaken to estimate the genetic divergence among FG, IFG, FJG, IFJG, and R crosses of Gir cow on the basis of age at first conception, age at first calving, and lactation milk yield per day of lactation length using Mahalanobis D² statistics. The genetic groups’ influence was significant (P?<?0.01) for all traits separately and simultaneously (V test) based on three traits. The differences in the D² values among all the genetic groups’ combinations were significant except IFG with R genetic group combination. The total D² values for age at first conception (AFCon), age at first calving (AFC), and lactation milk yield per day of lactation length (LMY/LL) were 18.85, 0.06, and 9.01 respectively. The percent contribution of AFCon to the total D² value was maximum as 67.51 followed by LMY/LL as 32.27 and lowest of AFC as 0.22. Among the clusters formed on the basis of D² values, IFG, IFJG, and R formed one cluster, whereas, FG and FJG formed second cluster. The magnitude of inter-cluster distance was greater than intra-cluster distance.     

Influence of maternal and additive genetic effects on offspring growth traits in Beetal goat

The purpose of the present study was to obtain estimates of variance components and genetic parameters for direct and maternal effects on various growth traits in Beetal goat by fitting four animal models, attempting to separate direct genetic, maternal genetic and maternal permanent environmental effects under restricted maximum likelihood procedure. The data of 3,308 growth trait records of Beetal kids born during the period from 2004 to 2019 were used in the present study. Based on best fitted models, the direct additive h² estimates were 0.06, 0.27, 0.37, 0.17 and 0.10 for birth weight (BWT), weight at 3 (WT3), 6 (WT6), 9 (WT9) and 12 (WT12) months of age, respectively. Maternal permanent environmental effects significantly contributed for 10% and 7% of total variance for BWT and WWT, respectively, which reduced direct heritability by 40 and 10% for respective traits from the models without these effects. For average daily gain (ADG1) and Kleiber ratios (KR1) up to weaning period (3 months) traits, maternal permanent environmental effects accounted for 7% and 8% of phenotypic variance, respectively, and resulted in a reduction of 6.6% and 5.4% in direct h² of respective traits. For post-weaning traits, the maternal effects were non-significant (p > .05) which indicates diminishing influence of mothering ability for these traits. High and positive genetic correlations were obtained among WT3-WT6, WT6-WT9 and WT9-WT12 with correlations of 0.96 ± 0.25, 0.84 ± 0.23 and 0.90 ± 0.13, respectively. Thus, early selection at weaning age can be practised taking into consideration maternal variation for effective response to selection in Beetal goat.     

Estimates of covariance components and genetic parameters for growth,average daily gain and Kleiber ratio in Harnali sheep

Tropical Animal Health and Production - The aim of the present study was to estimate the (co)variance components and genetic parameters for various growth traits (weight at birth (BWT) and 3 (WT3),...     

Identification and characterization of SNPs in released,landrace and wild accessions of mungbean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek) using whole genome re-sequencing

Journal of Crop Science and Biotechnology - Mungbean [Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek var. radiata] is vital grain legume having nutritional and socio-economic importance, especially in the...     

Evaluation of candidate genotype of leptin gene associated with fertility and production traits in Hardhenu (Bos taurus × Bos indicus) cattle

The present study was conducted on Hardhenu cattle to screen genomic region of leptin gene with an objective to find the association of genotypes with fertility and production traits. The association analysis with traits under study was analysed by least squares analysis of variance by taking SNPs genotype as fixed effects in the statistical model. The genotypic frequencies with respect to targeted loci g.92450765 G > A indicated that AG (0.54) genotype was highest in Hardhenu cattle. Chi-squared tests showed that g.92450765G > A SNP meet with the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (p > .05).The association analysis revealed significant association of genotypes with total milk yield (TMY) and 305 days milk yield (MY) (p < .05). Service period (SP) and calving interval (CI) were also found significantly associated with genotypes (p < .05). Whereas, lactation length (LL), dry days (DD) and age at first calving (AFC) did not divulge any significant association with genotype. The AG and GG genotypes were associated with higher milk yields as compared to AA genotype, indicating that allele G was associated with superior milk performance. However, AA genotyped cattle found to be favourable with SP, CI and artificial insemination (AI) per conception compared to AG and GG genotyped cows. Chi-square analysis revealed that genetic variants of g.92450765 G > A SNP of leptin gene differ significantly with regard to reproductive disorders incidence (p < .05). The frequency of GG genotype (88.89%) in the affected animal group was very high followed by AG. The animals with GG genotype were found to be more susceptible to reproductive disorders as suggested by the higher odd ratio value (16.00) in logistic model. These observations and their differential association with the fertility and production traits can be utilized as an aid to selection for genetic improvement of antagonistic traits in dairy cows.     

Preparation of nitrogen and phosphorus-enriched paddy straw compost and its effect on yield and nutrient uptake by wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Summary A nutrient-rich compost from paddy straw was prepared using urea and Mussoorie rock phosphate for N and P enrichment respectively. Inorganic N was partly conserved in the compost by the addition of pyrite. Citric-acid-soluble P also increased with the addition of pyrite. Compost containing about 1.6% total N and 3.3% total P was found to be a good source of P for a wheat crop and also supplied a significant amount of N to the plants.