Creation of a large reference family with phenotype recording and genotype data generation in buffaloes

Abstract

Buffalo is an integral part of dairy industry in India. Improvement of buffalo productivity shall require usage of high genetic merit bulls evaluated on the basis of progeny testing. Marker assisted selection of bulls shall enhance the accuracy of selection but require large number of daughters of the sires to be produced for the identification of Quantitative Trait Loci. In this paper we present creation of a large reference family (members with known genotype and phenotype). We created 12 large half sib families each with approximately 1,000 daughters per sire. The economic traits of interest like body weights at different ages, age at first heat, age at first calving, milk yield, fat and protein percentage in milk along with somatic cell count during the first lactation were recorded. The conception rate of bulls under field conditions was recorded and found to be 48.64% for the 12 bulls. There was huge loss of data attributable to different reasons however sale being the most important reason for non-recording of performance data. Only 25% of the daughters born to the 12 sires could be recorded for first lactation milk yield. 8027 daughters with confirm paternity were genotyped for 79 microsatellite markers located on 8 chromosomes, thus 6.34 lakh genotypes were generated. The information of this reference family has been compiled into a Buffalo Reference Family Germplasm Catalogue and published by National Agricultural Innovation Project, ICAR.