Page 18 - Sep302021

The Midwest Cattleman · September 30, 2021 · P18
Ensuring Cattle Maintain the Ability to Adapt

Researchers pave the way for genetic tests of cattle

that can look for the presence of specific adaptations,
such as heat resistance.

By Austin Fitzgerald, University of Missouri Extension

As a fourth-generation both to improve the welfare
cattle farmer, Jared Deck- of cattle and to plug a leak in
er knows that cattle suffer a nearly $50 billion industry
from health and productiv- in the United States.
ity issues when they are “When I joined MU in
taken from one environment 2013, I moved cattle from a
— which the herd has spent family farm in New Mexico
generations adapting to — to my farm here in Missou-
to a place with a different ri,” says Decker, an associ- times, natural and artificial environmental adaptations,
climate, a different elevation ate professor and Wurdack selection are moving in the losses the researchers attri-
or even different grass. As a Chair in Animal Genetics at same direction, and other bute to a lack of genetic in-
researcher at the Universi- the College of Agriculture, times there is a tug of war formation available to farm-
ty of Missouri (MU), he also Food and Natural Resourc- between them. Efficiency and ers. After examining genetic
sees an opportunity to use es. “New Mexico is hot and productivity have vastly im- material stretching back to
science to solve this problem, dry, and Missouri is also hot, proved in the last 60 years, the 1960s, they identified
but has much more humidi- but environmental stressors specific DNA variations as-
ty. The cattle certainly didn’t are never going to go away.” sociated with adaptations
do as well as they did in New — Jared Decker that could one day be used to
Mexico, and that spurred me In a new study published create DNA tests for cattle
to think about how we could in PLOS Genetics, Decker — tests that could tell farm-
give farmers more informa- and his team have uncov- ers whether their cattle are
tion about what their ani- ered evidence showing that
Jared Decker mals need to thrive. Some- cattle are losing important continued on page 36

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