U.S. flagAn official website of the United States government
                    Here's how you know **Official websites use .gov**
                            
                            A **.gov** website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
 **Secure .gov websites use HTTPS**
                            
                            A **lock** (                            
                              A locked padlock                                                      
                            
                            ) or **https://** means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Menu Agricultural Research Service
						
                    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
 Northeast Area
 close



    Research

                    Research Projects
                                    Publications
                                    Collaborations
                                    News
                People

                    Staff Listing
                                    Careers


        
                Northeast Area Cities

                    Washington, D.C.
                            Newark, Delaware
                            Boston, Massachusetts
                            Beltsville, Maryland (BHNRC)
                            Beltsville, Maryland (BARC)
                            Frederick, Maryland
                            Orono, Maine
                            Geneva, New York
                            Ithaca, New York
                            University Park, Pennsylvania
                            Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania
                            Kearneysville, West Virginia
                            Leetown, West Virginia
                            Burlington, Vermont


                    Civil Rights & EEO Policy StatementsSearch small
                    Search
            
            ARS Home
                                About ARS
                                Contact Us




ARS Home Northeast Area Docs Hot Research Topics







Cream of the Crop: Breeding Better Dairy Cattle  ARS scientists at Beltsville played a vital role in designing the BeadChip and are using it in genomics-based studies on dairy cattle. Beltsville geneticist Curt Van Tassell is leading development of a new genomic method to identify bulls that produce daughters with optimum milk production, calving ease, and other traits. "Progeny testing," the method now used to determine a bull's genetic merit, is time-consuming and costly. At ARS's Bovine Functional Genomics Research Unit, Van Tassell, with ARS geneticists Tad Sonstegard and George Wiggans, is working to whittle down the cost of progeny testing to about $500 a bull. Their approach is called "genome-enhanced improvement." It combines computer-aided statistical analysis with more than four decades' worth of records on dairy performance and conformation to help locate desirable genes. Collaborating with the Beltsville team are professors Jerry Taylor and Robert Schnabel with the University of Missouri-Columbia; and Illumina, the San Diego firm that manufactures the BeadChip. The researchers plan to examine a total of 53,000 SNPs from 12,000 cows and bulls representing several commercial dairy breeds and an ARS research population at Beltsville. Then they'll correlate SNP data to traits of interest, such as milk, fat, and protein production. Eventually, information derived from the markers will help dairy producers streamline their identification and breeding efforts. And, Van Tassell says, cutting test costs while increasing the rate of genetic improvement in dairy cattle will help make the U.S. germplasm industry more competitive globally. **Agricultural Reasearch magazine, August 2008 Complete Article**


Return to top


Connect with ARS Sign up


ARS Home
                            USDA.gov
                            Plain Writing
                            Policies & Links
                            Civil Rights Statements
                            FOIA
                            Accessibility Statement
                            Privacy Policy
                            Non-Discrimination Statement
                            Quality of Information
                            USA.gov
                            WhiteHouse.gov