Pushing boun-dairys: Chinese scientists say they cloned 3 ‘super cows’ – National | 24CA News

Scientists from China’s Northwest A&F University, positioned simply exterior Xi’an, informed native media that they efficiently cloned three “super cows” able to producing 50 per cent extra milk than the common Canadian Holstein dairy cow.

The researchers took tissue samples from Holstein cows that produced excessive volumes of milk and used the “somatic cell nuclear transfer method” to clone them, based on the Global Times. This technique of utilizing physique cells to create an embryo that’s then positioned right into a surrogate animal was used most famously to clone Dolly the Sheep.

The calves had been born final month in Lingwu City, with the primary calf weighing 56.7 kilograms and standing 76 centimetres tall. The first calf was born with “the exact shape and skin pattern of its cloned target,” the report notes.

Researchers imagine the calves will be capable to produce about 18 tons of milk per 12 months, totalling 100 tons of milk over their lifetime.

In comparability, the common Holstein cow in Canada produces roughly 12 tons of milk in 305 days, based on Agriculture Canada knowledge from 2021.

The scientists chosen high-performing Holstein cows for cloning.

The Dutch cattle breed is thought to provide a considerably greater than common quantity of milk, however the researchers recognized that about 5 in 10,000 Holstein cows in China had been “highly productive, long-lived and stress-resistant.”

To protect these preferrred genetics, the scientists determined to clone them. They decided a breeding program for tremendous cows could be too troublesome as a result of the cows are “scattered” throughout China and typically are recognized as high-performing too late of their lives to take benefit.

The media report notes that China largely depends on importing dairy cows to fulfill the rising demand for milk and cheese. Jin Yaping, the chief of the analysis workforce, believes their tremendous cow challenge will revitalize China’s agriculture sector.

Jin informed Global Times that their experiment produced 120 cloned embryos, 42 per cent of which had been implanted into surrogate cows. By day 200, about 18 per cent had been nonetheless fertile.

“We plan to take two to three years to build up a herd comprised of over 1,000 super cows, as a solid foundation to tackle China’s reliance on overseas dairy cows,” Jin stated.

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