The Fleckvieh breed, while internationally recognized as a dual-purpose breed is primarily used as a beef production animal in Ireland. However because of ever increasing pressure to improve efficiency, it is now accepted in Irish cattle breeding that beef production characteristics should be included in the national dairy cattle breeding programme. This development was accepted following a com...

The goal of any livestock breeding programme is to earn a return on investment and help their clients be more profitable. Success depends on efficiency of the breeding programme and its ability to supply genetically superior stock on a continuous basis to customers. To make this work availability of accurate information for making timely breeding decisions is key. Data collection and analysis i...

Article history: Received 8 January 2008 Accepted 10 November 2008 Population structure, performance testing and breeding scheme of the sire breed Piétrain in Bavariawere analyzed as a basis for further optimization studies of the breeding programme. To evaluate the current breeding programme, genetic trends and effective population size were estimated. Four data sets were used which contained ...

(eds M.C.S. Wopereis et al.) 173 Since the early 1990s, several other countries (Bangladesh, Egypt, India and Vietnam) have developed and introduced hybrid rice technology to their farmers. The availability of adequately trained human resources is an essential prerequisite for developing and using hybrid rice technology. Hybrid rice breeding uses several concepts, skills and procedures that are...

Breeding new and high performing cultivars with market-preferred traits take more than 10 years in the absence of an integrated pre-breeding programme. During early phases breeding a significant amount time, space resources are invested selection genetic advancement stages after initial crosses performed parental genotypes. Speed has potential to reduce time required for cultivar development, r...

It is presumed that the oUer (Lutra hara) became extinct in the Netherlands in 1988. Since then much effort has been made to restore the freshwater habitat aiming for a return of this top-predator. In 1998 from the central part of the Netherlands an otter was repOlted as a tratlic casualty. It was not known if this individual was a rudiment of the original Dutch population or if it had escaped ...

Sow performance is a key component of the productivity of commercial pig farms. Reproductive failure in the sow is common in pig production. For every 100 sows served, 89 should farrow. In absence of specific diseases such as porcine parvovirus, pseudo-rabies, swine fever, leptospirosis and brucellosis, management failures are the most important causes of loss. A syndrome associated with reprod...