www.agtechdaily.com
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability
Contact
ABOUT US
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability
No Result
View All Result
www.agtechdaily.com
No Result
View All Result
Home Agriculture

Tail hair technology uses real-time DNA sequencing to determine age of cattle

Admin by Admin
February 24, 2022
Reading Time:4min read
0
Tail hair technology uses real-time DNA sequencing to determine age of cattle

RELATED POSTS

Citizen science initiatives increase pollinator activity in private gardens and green spaces

Why this promising biofuel crop takes a summer break

Plant protection of the future may come from the plants themselves

UQ Centre for Animal Science director, Professor Ben Hayes sampling tail-hair. Credit: QAAFI

A way to determine the age of cattle by analyzing their tail hair has been described as a “game changer” for Australia’s lucrative northern cattle industry.

University of Queensland researchers have developed the method that uses an existing real-time sequencing device to read the age of the animal from DNA extracted from the tail hair.

Meat & Livestock Australia funded the project, which was supported by the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and producers, to address a core issue affecting northern Australia’s beef industry—the inability to determine the age of individual animals.

UQ Centre for Animal Science director, Professor Ben Hayes said herds range freely in-between annual musters and the births of individual animals were generally not recorded.

“Without age records, it’s difficult to establish the baseline growth rates, apply genomic predictions, and there are also adverse impacts on herd management.”

The work is led by UQ Research Fellow Dr. Elizabeth Ross using an Oxford-developed portable DNA sequencing device called MinION.

Buy JNews
ADVERTISEMENT

“The device is currently being used to give us information about the genetic makeup of the animal,” Dr. Ross said.

“But we’ve discovered that it can also be used to accurately measure a cattle‘s age to within 1.5 years.

“The DNA extracted for the animal’s tail hair using this method works across all ages in a herd, from five days to 14 years.”

The Northern Australia herd comprises 12.5 million cattle and makes up 90 percent of Australia’s live cattle exports.

Dr. Ross said if adopted by producers, the technology can deliver both the age estimate and genomic predictions from the same DNA test and is a “game changer” for improving herd performance.

“There’ll be gains across the board for producers including improved herd fertility, growth rates, health, and meat traits,” she said.

“Tools we can’t imagine today will be a reality in five years and I’m excited to be working with the portable DNA sequencer to help the cattle industry prepare for future challenges.”

The team is now working to include hundreds more tail hair samples before taking the technology for proof-of-concept trials on cattle stations later this year, and Dr. Loan Nguyen, who led the sequencing work, has developed protocols for several new studies.

As one of the inventors of genomic prediction, Professor Hayes said it was great to be able to help the Australian dairy and beef herds achieve significant productivity gains through this technology.

“This form of genetic analysis has proved exceptionally powerful at driving-up important productivity and welfare traits,” he said.

Meat & Livestock Australia General Manager Research Development & Adoption, Michael Crowley said MLA supported this work because of the benefits that genomics can bring to the red meat industry.

“The performance data and DNA gathered from cattle will enable genomic predictions and this completes the feedback loop and making sure that industry data will be used to drive ongoing genetic improvement,” Mr Crowley said.

The study is published in Frontiers in Genetics.


Genetic link between cattle temperament and autism


More information:
Ben J. Hayes et al, An Epigenetic Aging Clock for Cattle Using Portable Sequencing Technology, Frontiers in Genetics (2021). DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.760450

Provided by
University of Queensland


Citation:
Tail hair technology uses real-time DNA sequencing to determine age of cattle (2022, February 24)
retrieved 24 February 2022
from https://phys.org/news/2022-02-tail-hair-technology-real-time-dna.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.



Source link

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
Admin

Admin

Related Posts

Agriculture

Citizen science initiatives increase pollinator activity in private gardens and green spaces

January 27, 2023
Agriculture

Why this promising biofuel crop takes a summer break

January 27, 2023
Agriculture

Plant protection of the future may come from the plants themselves

January 26, 2023
Agriculture

Study analyzes gender differences in uptake of biological control agent to tackle tomato pest in Pakistan

January 26, 2023
Agriculture

Proper management of nitrogen and irrigation shown to increase yields and reduce leaching

January 26, 2023
Agriculture

Can we increase the carbon content of agricultural soils?

January 26, 2023
Next Post
Tail hair genotyping gives age of cattle

Tail hair genotyping gives age of cattle

Correlation between varied agricultural production and women’s dietary diversity

Correlation between varied agricultural production and women's dietary diversity

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest News

Caffeine is Polluting The World’s Rivers

Caffeine is Polluting The World’s Rivers

February 23, 2022

GCC agri-nutrients industry to address food security, net zero issues

August 24, 2022

Agritech startup Otipy raises $32 million from investors to expand business

March 7, 2022

Most Popular

  • Agricultural E-Commerce Boosts Incomes For Cherry farmers in Shandong

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Seeds of Discord: Farmers Accused of Fraud in Dicamba Dispute | Arkansas Business News

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Farm Credit Administration tours the Midwest – Agweek

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • 12 Biggest Agriculture Companies in the World

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • How Technology Is Changing Agriculture

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
www.agtechdaily.com

AgTech Daily provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping the agricultural and food technology industry

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Announcements
  • Food
  • Others
  • Sustainability
  • Technology

Quick Links

  • Home
  • About us

© 2022 - All Right Reserved. www.agtechdaily.com.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability

© 2022 - All Right Reserved. www.agtechdaily.com.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
%d bloggers like this: