Abstract
One hundred and fifty six ejaculates from eight Karan Fries (KF) bull were collected to study the effect of season (summer, rainy and winter) on semen quality parameters at Artificial Breeding Research Centre, NDRI, Karnal, India. The data was analysed using least square analysis. Season had no significant effect on ejaculate volume, mass activity, total sperm output and pH of the semen, whereas it had significant (P<0.05) effect on initial motility, non-eosinophilic count and acrosome integrity of sperms as well as highly significant (P<0.01) effect on HOST, sperm concen - tration, sperm abnormalities and osmolality of semen in KF bulls. The results clearly indicate that during summer season, the highest values of sperm abnormalities, pH and OSMOL and lowest val- ues of IM, SPC, SPCE, LIVE, HOST and AI was observed. During winter season highest magni- tude of MA, IM, SPC, SPCE, LIVE, HOST and AI and lowest value of VOL, sperm abnormalities, pH and OSMOL were observed in KF bulls. It was concluded that the semen qualities were optimal during winter, poor during summer and intermediate during rainy season.
Highlights
Animal productivity and quality of produce is mainly affected by adverse climatic condition especially heat stress in tropical environment
The information regarding the effect of seasons on semen characteristics in dairy bulls has been reported to be of a conflicting nature (Bhakat et al, 2009), Some research workers have reported significant effect of season (Rekwot et al, 1987; Goswami et al, 1991 and Singh and Raina, 2000), while others observed non-significant effect (Mathur et al, 2002; Helbig et US Publishers al., 2007) of season on semen quality parameters
The results clearly indicated that there was highly significant (P
Summary
Animal productivity and quality of produce is mainly affected by adverse climatic condition especially heat stress in tropical environment. Of all seasons, summer exerts comparatively more adverse effect on the overall quality of semen. It affects the normal reproduction process multi dimensionally, by reducing feed intake, inhibiting release or response of GnRH, FSH and LH. Thyroxin secretion declines leading to reduced intake of feed by the animal, subsequent metabolism and is responsible for reduction in sperm production. Due to extreme heat stress bulls get physically exhausted and their reduced libido might result in higher reaction time and subsequently total time for successful ejaculation increase, having an ultimate effect on production of sperms (Mandal et al, 2000). Statistical Ananlysis The recorded data were subjected to statistical analysis using LSML-91 software package, Walter Harvey
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