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Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
IMPACT OF MODERN REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES ON PRODUCTIVITY IN PIGS: A REVIEW
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on July 7, 2017
The potential exists to improve different sow reproduction traits, such as age at puberty, oestrous symptoms, ability to become pregnant, litter size, piglet survival and weight, milk production, maternal behaviour and ability to show oestrus after weaning. In practice, however, considerable problems are associated with genetic selection for most of these traits as they have low heritability values. The speed at which genetic improvements can be achieved by traditional methods is slow. Many of the new reproductive technologies offer possibilities for improving the rate of genetic progress. These include in vitro embryo production (IVEP), non-surgical embryo transfer (ET), sperm sexing technology (SST), and molecular biology techniques (QTL and MAS). The real impact on genetic progress will come from combining new reproductive techniques with powerful molecular techniques. The former will allow a rapid turnover of generations, whereas the latter can provide selection, which does not need phenotypic information when the selection decisions are made.
IMPACT OF MODERN REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES ON PRODUCTIVITY IN PIGS- A REVIEW