Evaluation of fertility in relation to milk production and productivity of Murrah buffaloes.

Intense selection of buffaloes for milk production at organized herds of the country without giving due attention to fertility traits has lead to deterioration in their performances. The study was initiated to assess the relationship between milk production and productivity with fertility in Murrah buffaloes. In the present study, fertility was defined in terms of pregnancy rate of Murrah buffaloes. Pregnancy rate measures the percentage of non-pregnant animals that become pregnant during each oestrous cycle. Data pertaining to 1224 lactation records of Murrah buffaloes spread over a period 22 years from 1993 to 2014 were analyzed in the study. It was observed that pregnancy rate is negatively associated with 305days or less milk yield (-0.08±0.04) and wet average (-0.12±0.02) and positively associated with life time (0.15±0.03) in Murrah buffaloes. Wet average is defined as average daily milk yield per lactation of Murrah buffaloes. To achieve around 2000kg 305days or less milk yield and 7.5kg wet average, the level of pregnancy rate in Murrah buffaloes should vary between 30 and 50%. The per unit change in pregnancy rate with respect to milk yield in Murrah buffaloes, were studied using regression analysis. The results suggest that increasing hundred kilogram in 305days or one kilogram milk yield per day in 305days, pregnancy rate reduced by 0.9% in overall lactations of Murrah buffaloes. By increasing hundred kilogram life time 305days or less milk yield and one kilogram life time wet average, pregnancy rate of Murrah buffaloes reduced by about 0.2% and 0.34%, respectively. The study quantifies the decline of pregnancy rate with increase of lactation milk yield and wet average in Murrah buffaloes and emphasis the importance of fertility i.e. pregnancy rate in the evaluation and breeding programmes of Murrah buffaloes.

PLL Based Energy Efficient PV System with Fuzzy Logic Based Power Tracker for Smart Grid Applications.

This work aims at improving the dynamic performance of the available photovoltaic (PV) system and maximizing the power obtained from it by the use of cascaded converters with intelligent control techniques. Fuzzy logic based maximum power point technique is embedded on the first conversion stage to obtain the maximum power from the available PV array. The cascading of second converter is needed to maintain the terminal voltage at grid potential. The soft-switching region of three-stage converter is increased with the proposed phase-locked loop based control strategy. The proposed strategy leads to reduction in the ripple content, rating of components, and switching losses. The PV array is mathematically modeled and the system is simulated and the results are analyzed. The performance of the system is compared with the existing maximum power point tracking algorithms. The authors have endeavored to accomplish maximum power and improved reliability for the same insolation of the PV system. Hardware results of the system are also discussed to prove the validity of the simulation results.

Influence of Temperature and Humidity on Pregnancy Rate of Murrah Buffaloes under Subtropical Climate.

Heat stress has adverse effects on fertility of dairy animals. Decline in fertility is linearly associated with an increase in combination of both temperature and humidity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between temperature humidity index (THI) and the pregnancy rate of Murrah buffaloes in a subtropical climate. The effects of genetic and non-genetic factors viz., sire, parity, period of calving and age group at first calving were found non-significant on pregnancy rate. The effect of THI was found significant (p<0.001) on pregnancy rate of Murrah buffaloes calved for first time and overall pregnancy rate. The threshold THI affecting the pregnancy rate was identified as THI 75. The months from October to March showed THI<75 and considered as non heat stress zone (NHSZ), while months from April to September were determined as heat stress zone (HSZ) with THI≥75. The lowest overall pregnancy rate (0.25) was obtained in July with THI 80.9, while the highest overall pregnancy rate (0.59) was found in November with THI 66.1. May and June were identified as critical heat stress zone (CHSZ) within the HSZ with maximum decline (-7%) in pregnancy rate with per unit increase in THI. The highest overall pregnancy rate was estimated as 0.45 in NHSZ with THI value 56.7 to 73.2. The pregnancy rate was found to have declined to 0.28 in HSZ with THI 73.5 to 83.7. However, the lowest pregnancy rate was estimated as 0.27 in CHSZ with THI value 80.3 to 81.6.

Phenotypic Characterization and Multivariate Analysis to Explain Body Conformation in Lesser Known Buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) from North India.

Phenotypic characterization and body biometric in 13 traits (height at withers, body length, chest girth, paunch girth, ear length, tail length, length of tail up to switch, face length, face width, horn length, circumference of horn at base, distances between pin bone and hip bone) were recorded in 233 adult Gojri buffaloes from Punjab and Himachal Pradesh states of India. Traits were analysed by using varimax rotated principal component analysis (PCA) with Kaiser Normalization to explain body conformation. PCA revealed four components which explained about 70.9% of the total variation. First component described the general body conformation and explained 31.5% of total variation. It was represented by significant positive high loading of height at wither, body length, heart girth, face length and face width. The communality ranged from 0.83 (hip bone distance) to 0.45 (horn length) and unique factors ranged from 0.16 to 0.55 for all these 13 different biometric traits. Present study suggests that first principal component can be used in the evaluation and comparison of body conformation in buffaloes and thus provides an opportunity to distinguish between early and late maturing to adult, based on a small group of biometric traits to explain body conformation in adult buffaloes.

Optimizing age of bull at first use in relation to fertility of Murrah breeding bulls.

AIM: The aim of the present investigation was to optimize the age at first use (AAFU) of semen of Murrah breeding bulls, which will help in early selection of bulls under progeny testing program for improving the reproductive performance in the herd. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data on AAFU, conception rate based on first A.I. (CRFAI), overall conception rate (OCR), and birth weight (B.WT) of 57 Murrah bulls during 1993-2014 at NDRI center pertaining to 14 sets of Network Project on Buffalo Improvement at ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India were adjusted for significant environmental influences and subsequently analyzed. Simple and multiple regression models were used for prediction of CRFAI and OCR of Murrah breeding bulls. Comparative evaluation of three developed models (I-III) showed that Model III, having AAFU and B.WT, fulfill the accuracy of model as revealed by high coefficient of determination, low mean sum of squares due to error, low conceptual predictive value, and low Bayesian information criterion. RESULTS: The results revealed that the average predicted CRFAI was highest (39.95%) at <3.5 years and lowest (34.87%) at >4.5 years of age at first A.I/use. Similarly, average predicted OCR was highest (41.05%) at <3.5 years and lowest (39.42%) at >4.5 years of age at first A.I/use of Murrah bulls. CONCLUSION: In organized herd under progeny testing program, Murrah bulls should be used at young age, i.e. prior to 3.5 years, which is expected to result in 5.08% better CRFAI and 1.63% better OCR in comparison to Murrah bulls used after 4.5 years of age.

Identifying factors affecting age at first semen freezing and age at first semen use in Sahiwal bulls.

AIM: The objective of the study was to evaluate the effects of non-genetic factors on reproduction traits viz. age at first semen freezing and age at first semen use of breeding bulls in Sahiwal bulls by fitting least-squares analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The information on reproduction traits of 43 Sahiwal breeding bulls belonging to 8 sets of Sahiwal breeding program at Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Dairy Research Institute (ICAR-NDRI), Karnal (Haryana), India during 27 years (1987-2013) were analyzed using fixed linear model. The information was collected from AI records, reproduction sheets, and bull AI register maintained at different sections of Institute viz. record room of Dairy Cattle Breeding Division (DCB), Cattle Yard, Artificial Breeding Research Centre, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal. RESULTS: The average age at first semen freezing and age at first semen use of Sahiwal breeding bulls was estimated as 3.17±0.01 years and 5.35±0.01 years, with the coefficient of variation 18.93% and 20%, respectively. The overall least-squares mean for age at first semen freezing and age at first semen use was estimated as 3.14±0.09 years and 5.25±0.02 years, respectively, in Sahiwal breeding bulls. Period of freezing/use had significant effects on reproductive traits (p<0.01). Season had no significant effect on any of the traits considered in this study. CONCLUSION: It can be concluded that management inputs such as nutrition, breeding, and optimum environment should be taken care of to optimize age at first semen freezing and age at first semen use for better utilization of superior germplasm.