A potential breakthrough in livestock semen sex sorting may add hundreds of millions of dollars to NZ’s dairy exports reports Stuff. Androgenix, a new company based at Auckland University’s Institute of Biotechnology, has been developing for almost three years a cost-effective process for sexing semen.

Co-founder and part-time chief executive Brent Ogilvie said he’s hoping to  confirm Androgenix’s technology works this year. If successful, Androgenix will be able to offer semen sex-sorting technology to  livestock insemination companies that is relatively low cost but with high fertilisation rates  two problems that have plagued others attempting to control the sex of livestock born.

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A new genetic product, or SNP Chip, aimed at assisting sheep breeders and Angus beef breeders with molecular breeding values, has been launched in the United States and will be available in NZ later this year. The products are being commercialised by Pfizer Animal Health.

Sharl Liebergreen, the company’s technical service regional manager, said the technology was leveraged off the bovine genome sequencing, which allowed geneticists initially to use 50,000 DNA markers at once but would soon grow to 500,000 markers. By comparison, the dairy industry was using 500,000 gene markers reports The ODT.

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A new genetic tool that could be as revolutionary for sheep breeding as computer technology has been, should be available to farmers from early next year. SNP Chips was the result of genetic sequencing of the sheep genome and allowed researchers to understand the effects of small genes rather than just the large genes currently possible reports The ODT. “It allows you to get better predictions of what the actual worth of an animal is,” AgResearch Invermay senior animal genomics scientist John McEwan said. Cumulatively, small genes could add up to 50% to 95% of genetic variation between animals, he said.

In the dairy industry, the two large artificial insemination companies – LIC and CRV Ambreed New Zealand – had already adopted SNP Chips, but Mr McEwan said sheep farmers in general wanted to see how others adapted it. Historically, each of the top 40 bulls used in artificial insemination programmes would have be rated following testing of 80 to 100 daughters, by which stage the average age of each sire was five years.

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As antler weights continue to rise in NZ , there was no disappointing the 50 competitors that attended the 2009 National Velvet and Trophy Antler Competition. The competition was held on Wednesday at Ascot Park and attracted the industry’s best, with some good velvet and hard antler weights reports The Southland Times.

Organiser Peter Allan said velvet weights had doubled in each deer age-group since the 1990s and that was reflected in competition. It was former organiser David Stevens who drew much attention on the night, winning the 5-year-old red section with antlers weighing in at 12.3kg. “The heaviest ever, I believe,” Mr Stevens said.

Ranfurly farmers John and Mary Falconer’s set also placed well in the competition, taking second spot in the open section at 13.68kg. Bill and Jill Oliver, of Christchurch, won the open section with a set weight of 14.60kg.

Researchers aiming to control or even eliminate a disease in farm livestock which costs the nation up to $88 million a year are probing where some genetic types of animal are particularly susceptible or resistant reports Stuff.  A micro-organism with the tongue-twisting scientific label of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis — also known as MAP — causes Johne’s disease, a chronic wasting intestinal disease in a range of animals, including cattle, deer and sheep.

Johnes is spread by the faeces of infected animals and blocks the absorption of food, causing them to waste away and die. Bacteria infect the walls of the intestines, causing a malabsorption syndrome, protein loss from the inflamed bowel, anaemia, and the collapse of the immune system. It can not only mimic other health problems such as chronic parasitism, trace element deficiency and poor nutrition, but also interfere with tests for bovine tuberculosis.

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Silver Fern Farms has defended the payment of premiums for certain breeds of lamb, saying the market paid more for certain animals which met certain criteria reports The ODT. Farmers have criticised the meat co-operative for paying farmers a 10c a kg premium for Primera-bred lambs supplied under contract to Marks and Spencer, but Silver Fern Farms said to qualify, the lambs had to meet standards demanded by the supermarket chain.  SFF livestock manager Grant Howie said lamb breed was just one criterion demanded by Marks and Spencer.

Suppliers also had to monitor their carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, land management impact and have plans for the environment, quality assurance, animal welfare and food safety, he said. “This is the old market averaging model versus the new integrated-market led model. When it comes to the Marks and Spencer programme, there is more value in the total programme than an average market programme.”

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AgResearch will soon seek regulatory approval for field trials of new transgenic grasses it claims could reduce greenhouse gas emissions. AgResearch’s applied biotechnologies manager, Jimmy Suttie, said the transgenic grasses had both environmental and productivity advantages reports The ODT. The grasses were high in energy, which meant fewer animals were needed to get the same production, reducing the amount of methane released.

The science behind the forage meant digestion of the plant was more efficient, cutting the amount of methane produced by animals and increasing energy that went into tissue and productivity. But Dr Suttie said the technology also had implications for further research to cut methane emissions and reduce the volume of water required by the plants.

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Three years ago, a technological breakthrough gave dairy farmers the chance to bend a basic rule of nature: no longer would their cows have to give birth to equal numbers of female and male offspring. Instead, using a high-technology method to sort the sperm of dairy bulls, they could produce mostly female calves to be raised into profitable milk producers. Now the first cows bred with that technology, tens of thousands of them, are entering milking herds across the country — and the timing could hardly be worse reports The New York Times.

The US dairy industry is in crisis, with prices so low that farmers are selling their milk below production cost. The industry is struggling to cut output. And yet the wave of excess cows is about to start dumping milk into a market that does not need it. “It’s real simple,” said Tony De Groot, an early adopter of the new breeding technology, who milks 4,200 cows on a farm here in the heart of this state’s struggling dairy region. “We’ve just got too many cattle on hand and too many heifers on hand, and the supply just keeps on coming and coming.”

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Two of the leading players in NZ agriculture – Silver Fern Farms and Livestock Improvement (LIC) – have jointly developed a pilot programme which when proven, will deliver “enabling knowledge” to implement an integrated supply chain from farmer partners of Silver Fern Farms to their international customer partners.

· Silver Fern Farms is New Zealand’s leading procurer, processor and marketer of lamb, mutton, beef, venison and associated products to more than 60 countries
· LIC is one of the largest integrated herd improvement organisations in the world with proven data and analysis management.

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World burger giant McDonald’s has given the NZ meat industry a boost with a deal to buy an extra 500,000kg of angus beef for two new premium burgers reports Stuff. The contract is estimated to be worth at least an extra $5 million to the industry. The meat will be used in angus burgers in the United States, Canada and Australia, as well as in NZ, where they will sell for $7.20.

Angus is noted for a fine texture and slight marbling that gives it a special flavour, and has been a four-year winner in the Steak of Origin taste contest. McDonald’s is NZ’s biggest beef buyer and the angus deal will lift its annual purchase to 25.2 million kilograms, 20 million of which goes overseas.

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