After breeding, the embryos are flushed from the cow's uterus, evaluated, then transferred to surrogate mothers. Using embryo transfer, a single outstanding cow can pass her genes on to an almost unlimited number of offspring. But those offspring are not clones. About 80 percent form early embryos. After that, they're transferred into recipient surrogate mothers.
Calves are virtually identical to the outstanding cow.
There's a lot of overlap in these technologies. Edwards grew up in Erin, which is in Houston County. Her mother owned a restaurant in White Bluff and her grandparents owned a dairy farm that fascinated her. While attending Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, she decided to make a career in animal science. That led to a master's degree in dairy science at Mississippi State University.