scientists from of China Northwest A&F University, just outside Xi’an, told local media that they successfully cloned three “super cows,” capable of producing 50 percent more milk than the average Canadian Holstein. dairy Cow.
Researchers took tissue samples from Holstein cows According to, which produced milk in high quantities and used the “somatic cell nuclear transfer method” to clone them Global Times, This method of using the body’s cells to create an embryo that is then placed in a surrogate animal was most famously used to clone dolly the sheep,
The calves were born last month in Lingwu city, with the first calf weighing 56.7 kg and measuring 76 cm long. The report states that the first calf was born with “the exact shape and skin pattern of the cloned target”.
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Researchers believe that the calves will be able to produce about 18 tonnes of milk per year, for a total of 100 tonnes of milk in their lifetime.
In comparison, the average Holstein cow in Canada produces about 12 tons of milk in 305 days. Agriculture Canada data from 2021,
Scientists selected high-performing Holstein cows for cloning.
The Dutch cattle breed is known for producing significantly higher than average amounts of milk, but researchers found that about five out of 10,000 Holstein cows in China were “highly productive, long-lived and stress-resistant”. .
To preserve these ideal genetics, scientists decided to clone them. They determined that a breeding program for super cows would be too difficult because the cows are known to be “scattered” throughout China and are sometimes identified as high performers too late in their lives to take advantage. .
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Media reports say that to meet the growing demand for milk and cheese, China is largely dependent on imports of dairy cows. Jin Yaping, the leader of the research team, believes his super cow project will revitalize China’s agricultural sector.
Jin told the Global Times that his experiment resulted in 120 cloned embryos, of which 42 percent were implanted into surrogate cows. By day 200, about 18 percent were still fertile.
“We plan to take two to three years to build a herd of more than 1,000 super cows as a solid foundation to deal with China’s dependence on foreign dairy cows,” Jin said.
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