Cloned bull’s semen used to produce 20 calves in 8 months

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, December 14

The semen of a cloned bull of Murrah breed has used to produce 20 male and female calves in the Central Institute for Research on Buffalos (CIRB) here. The artificial insemination technique was used to produce high-milk-yielding clones.

The cloned bull named Hisar Gaurav achieved the feat in eight months, as it start generating semen at the age of 22 months.

The CIRB celebrates his third birthday on Tuesday. Hisar Gaurav is the first-ever cloned bull to impregnate buffaloes. The bull generates 3,000 dozes of semen straws in a month for artificial insemination of buffaloes.

Dr Prem Singh Yadav, principal scientist and project head in the CIRB, told The Tribune on Thursday: “The semen of Hisar Gaurav, who weighs 692 kg, was used to impregnate 45 buffaloes. But we achieved success in 27 cases, which is a normal rate of success via artificial insemination.”

Impressed by the success, he said, the Centre sanctioned Rs5.74 crore to the CIRB and the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) for cloning of superior breeds, and for improving the technique and research for clone embryos to pregnancy, as the success rate in this technique is one to five per cent only. Under the new project, about 50 clones would be produced by 2022.

Dr Yadav said Hisar Gaurav was cloned from a bull whose mother buffalo yielded 3,500 litres of milk in one lactation period. “The clones produced from Hisar Gaurav’s semen are also likely to be high-milk-yielding animals,” he added. The CIRB is the third institute in the world and second in India – after the NDRI, Karnal — to produce a cloned buffalo.