Scientists in Karnal have successfully cloned a male calf from the frozen semen of a Murrah bull which died 10 years ago.
“We have for the first time produced a male cloned calf from the somatic cell of progeny-tested bull which died 10 years ago,” director of National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) Dr AK Srivastava said on Sunday.The calf, who has been given name of Rajat, was born on July 23 by using “hand-guided cloning” technique and its weight at the time of the birth was 32 kg, a release from NDRI said.
The Murrah bull, whose frozen semen was used to produce male calf, had been ranked first in the 5th set of all-India progeny-testing programme.A progeny test is performed by mating the male with a number of females to produce many progenies and the average performance of the offspring is then found, giving a measure of the male’s respective value, and it takes years to evaluate its superiority, an NDRI release said.