After IVF calf Holi, NDRI begins work on ‘Sahiwal’

Parveen Arora
Tribune News Service
Karnal, October 15

After the production of ‘Holi’ calf through Ovum Pick-Up (OPU) in vitro fertilization (IVF) technique and its successful results, scientists of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) have initiated the work on the indigenous cows Sahiwal and Gir using OPU-IVF technique to multiply the elite animals of indigenous breeds at a faster rate.

At present, a normal cow produces a single calf in a year, but with this technology 10-20 calves can be produced in a year.

The NDRI had produced Holi calf on March 7, 2012, from an animal that was unable to reproduce and now this technology is being utilised for the production of elite indigenous animals.

It is expected that this technology may be used in gaushalas where some of the elite animals are available. As per scientists, no hormonal intervention is required in this technique and it will help in meeting the increasing demand of semen doses and milk.

“India still lacks the sufficient number of elite bulls for fulfilling the demand of semen doses for covering all the breedable female cattle and buffaloes by artificial insemination (AI). So, use of OPU-IVF technique enables to provide elite male and female, which may fulfill the gap of quality semen doses and increase the productivity of milch animals to meet the demand of milk,” said NDRI Director Dr MS Chauhan.

He believed the technique would help in conservation of indigenous animals. “In Indian scenario, OPU-IVF is the need of the day for conservation of indigenous elite animals. It is a technique in which oocytes are taken out from live animals and are used for in vitro embryo production through IVF,” he added.

In OPU, besides healthy and reproductive animals, animals having reproductive/fertility problem or insensitive to super-ovulatory treatments may be used for oocyte recovery, the director said, adding that the young female calves or early pregnant animals may be used as oocyte donor. “The beauty of this technique is that oocytes can be aspirated twice weekly from the same animal without any adverse effect on their health,” he said.

Dr Manoj Kumar Singh, scientist, animal biotechnology, said: “It has now become a useful technique to receive oocytes of known pedigree cattle and to produce the quality embryos for genetic upgrade of our indigenous cattle. This technique is also easy to perform without surgery. Besides, more transferable embryos per donor can be yielded on a monthly basis and once the technological improvement of OPU-IVF optimises, the number of transferable embryos will be significantly increased.”