Interactive Blog with Dr. Deepak S. Kale
Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding
, Nagpur Veterinary College
Q. Please tell us about your background like parents, place of birth early and college
education, what attracted you to veterinary science?
My parents are agriculturist. I basically hail from Kemwadi a small village in Tuljapur taluka of Osmanabad district of Maharashtra State. I have studied my early education in a village school, later completed high school and College education at Omerga and Latur towns.
I feel proud to say that, I have completed my B.V.Sc.& A.H. degree from Bombay Veterinary College (BVC), Parel, Mumbai in September 2000. Later I have completed my Masters degree in Veterinary Sciences (M.V.Sc.) from a College at Anand, Gujarat. I have completed doctoral studies from AAI- DU Allahabad, wherein I have conducted my doctoral research work at National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, Haryana. Before joining as Assistant Professor at Nagpur Veterinary College, Nagpur in 2009; I was also Post-doctoral Fellow (PDF) at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad during the year 2008-2009. To be honest Veterinary & Animal Science Field was not my first choice. After 12 standard I had planned to join medical science with ambition to serve people, unfortunately, I missed the chance with narrow margin and then I got admission in BVC, Mumbai. As years of graduation progressed my fascination to Veterinary Profession also increased gradually. Finally, I realised that Veterinary and Animal Sciences is the God’s gift for a person like me and I am enjoying my professional work a lot.
Q. What is your area of specialization? Can you describe the domain details for our farmers?
My area of specialization is Animal Genetics and Breeding and my domain details are: Geneticist, Cytogeneticist, Animal Breeder, Animal Molecular Geneticist, Bioinformatician, and Animal Genomics Scientist.
Q. What role an animal breeder plays in livestock industry?
Nowadays animal breeders have very important roles to play in growth of livestock industry. Animal breeder can intervene in employing scientific approach in collection and storage of data on individually identified elite animals, performance recording of each breed in uniform formats for generating complete pedigree information about the animals for selection & breeding programs. Breeders also have a role in delivering concept of appropriate statistical methods and computing softwares for analysing breeding & molecular genetic data for its use in right kind of breeding method for genetic improvement especially for production and reproduction characteristics. Animal breeders are also involved in progeny testing of bulls by analysing their daughter’s performance data complemented with genomic intervention which can aid in the faster genetic improvement of indigenous cattle.
Q. Now a days everybody is talking about genomics, can you please explain what is its meaning and how it works?
This is very important advanced discipline in Animal Genetics. Let us first understand the word genome. The basic structural unit of all living beings is ‘Gene’ and the all the genes organized in a particular functional order is usually called ‘Genome’. Genomics is the scientific study of structure, function, and interrelationships of both individual genes and genome in its entirety. It brings together know-how in animal biology, bioinformatics and applied mathematics to generate and use new data. Genomics will shed new light on highly complex workings of living organisms,and allow the world to use genomic selection to face the challenges of livestock breeding. Animal Genomic research focuses primarily on elucidation of genetic architecture of traits of economic interest in cattle e.g. production, reproduction, adaptability, and disease traits etc.
Q. Suppose a farmer wants to know if my cow or bull is of high pedigree what he should do?
Actually, high pedigree will tell us about true to the breed purity and possession of superior genes for economic traits. This is possible with even simple action like recording the sire (father) and dam (mother) information at each generation so that one can know how the ancestors performed in previous generation for milk production and other traits. But, under Indian conditions; where it is difficult to trace records of animal’s; the alternate complementary is genomic analysis in which animal’s genomic makeup is compared with already known superior animals. For example, illumina 50K bovine SNP chip may be used to generate SNP database of superior animals & the data can be used to identify genetic relationships and breed composition population.
[ Readers can refer to indiancattle.com directory to know addresses of such laboratories in India. ]
Q. You have worked intensively in the field of Genomics. Can you please explain in brief your involvement in Indian breeds of cattle?
I have worked extensively in the field of genomics; especially my PG research project was on “Estimation of genetic diversity among Gir, Kankrej, and Deoni cattle breeds using microsatellite. My Doctoral Research work was on “Screening of Genes Associated with Milk Production Traits in Indian Buffaloes”. In Post-Doctoral Fellowship (PDF) at CCMB, Hyderabad, I had worked in a Wellcome Trust Project on ‘Transcriptional transgene silencing: insight mechanism and interconnection. Currently, since last 09 years I have been actively involved in UG/ PG teaching and research at Department of Animal Genetics & Breeding, Nagpur Veterinary College, Nagpur. Till date, I have guided two PG students in the area of animal genomics wherein their research work was mostly on Exploring gene sequence variation in Indian cattle. Recently, SERB, DST, Govt. of India project under Core Research Grant Scheme is sanctioned in September 2018 with the objective for investigating effect of genes on milk production traits in Gaolao Indian cattle.
Q. Number of indigenous breeds are decreasing; can you explain reason behind this and what would be the short-term and long-term solutions?
India has large indigenous bovine population with rich bio diversity consisting of 42 well- defined indigenous breeds of cattle. They have adaptability to harsh climatic conditions, ability to perform on poor quality feed and fodder, resistance to disease etc. Adult males of some native breeds are also known for their draft qualities. The primary reason for the decline in numbers of such breeds is reduced productivity- an uneconomical proposition for farmers. Other reasons such as loss of habitat due to deforestation, indiscriminate crossbreeding in the breeding tract of purebred Indian cattle. Similarly, it is observed that the draught breeding utility has decreased due to mechanization in agriculture.The solution therefore lies in their genetic improvement for production and reproduction traits to make them economically viable. Short term solutions are: i) Animal Identification, Parentage testing & precise data recording,
ii) Selection based on phenotypic records (such as milk production), genomic tools & scientific planned breeding strategy.
[ For more about computerized system of data recording please visit the directory of indiancattle.com ]
Long term solutions include sustainable conservation strategy (in-situ & ex-situ) along with genetic improvement for each indigenous breed of cattle. For broadening genetic base of indigenous cattle, it is urgency to identify high genetics merit bulls of each breed using traditional criteria of selection like, Progeny Testing, Pedigree selection and effective breeding schemes like Open Nucleus Breeding System (ONBS) coupled with latest genomics and reproductive tools. Thus improved productivity using the above strategies coupled with conserving unique traits suited to tropical conditions will aid in checking decreasing trend of indigenous cattle population.
Q. What farmers, government and other organizations should do to increase productivity in Zebu cows?
Government along with the university research inputs should plan time lined genetic improvement strategy for indigenous cattle breeds of the state. The farmers should be made aware of purchasing or rearing good animals, using high pedigree semen for artificial insemination and recording data to undertake precision farming and future breeding plans. The farmers keeping elite animals should be encouraged through incentives and competing elite animals should be judged based on breeding parameters for award through regular cattle fairs. Other NGO’s, pastoralist groups, volunteers and breeders’ clubs/ associations should be formed with the objective of faster genetic improvement for the economic characters per generation in the breeding population of indigenous cattle.
Q. What is the role of gaushala in genomics?
Traditionally in India, Gaushalas were rich sources of genetics but over the time it is lost and gaushala have become synonymous to centres maintaining abandoned cattle. In view of this if the gaushalas are brought under the genetic improvement plan they will prove to be rich source of data. In view of this it is necessary to maintain Gaushala with guidelines of standard operating procedures (SOPs) w.r.t. Genetics and Breeding. Government should include and give support to Gaushalas in performance recording of indigenous cattle, motivating to maintain nucleus herd, supply of superior genetic semen, in selection and breeding with scientific lines. This will help in understanding genetic signatures using genomic tools behind superiority of certain animals for quantitative traits like milk production, reproduction etc.
Q. You must have studied how Brazil and other countries improved Indian cows.
Can we learn any lesson from that? Do you think Government is in right path or any course correction is needed?
Definitely we should learn lessons from Brazil because they have improved Indian Gir, Kankrej, Brahaman and Ongole breeds of cattle. Milk production is a quantitative character hence it is difficult to improve in short-term, it would take few generations. The first activity Brazil undertook was to establish a string farmer-driven Zebu Breed Umbrella Association and Association for each breed. Critical activities like data recording and maintenance of records, ranking of bulls was entrusted to these organizations. Government’s role was to provide funds, the universities played advisory roles and Government kept these organs under supervision. One they had identified superior genetic cows and bulls these were multiplied using modern assisted reproduction technologies, such as embryo transfer, MOET. They trained cadre of enterprising veterinarians who opened their businesses and gave these services to the farmers on chargeable basis. One should remember, selection as a strategy is successful only when culling is also applied with same intensity. After several generations of selections and culling a large number of Brazil Gir are known to yield more than 8000 Kg milk in a lactation.In my opinion Government should look at this development modelis not existing today. The Government should focus on few breeds for improvement, implement extensive field performance recording of data, create phenomic database for creation of reference population, involve stakeholders such as, farmers, University, NDDB, volunteers, NGOs with fixing the responsibility of each stakeholder, frequent organization of cattle show and award to good animals, Formation of Breed’s Club with the object to maintain herd register data bank, sharing of data and monitoring selection and breeding in field, discourage crossbreeding in breeding tract.
Q. Zebu is heat tolerant, is there any genetic reason behind this?
Yes, there is lot of research work on this topic, such as HSP genes. It is now known that there are some variants of these genes that are related with heat tolerance in many Indian breed. This could be one of the tools to select heat tolerant crossbred bulls.
Q. Who else worked on breed development in India and what work
they have done so far?
Breed development work started in India as early as 1875 near Patna using short horn bull on local cows and Taylor breed of cattle was formed. A number of institutes are now involved in this task. For example, Allahabad Agricultural Institute (AAI-DU) Allahabad, PDC Meerut, MPKV Rahuri, NDRI Karnal, etc., are doing work related with breed development. The ICAR has sanctioned several schemes on improvement of desi cows. NBAGR, Karnal is doing wonderful work on biodiversity conservation, breed registration and gene banking. [ For details on these institutes and their work please visit indiancattle.com directory. ]
What role indiancattle.com can play in creating interest in Indian cattle breeds especially for improving their productivity?
Today is information era wherein lots of good information is available now, but need is to transform this to usable format considering the needs of Indian livestock farmers and breeders. I am glad that Indiancattle.com has already started doing this. Through this portal you can play major role in creating awareness about advantages and benefits of indigenous cattle and their products over others, networking desi cattle farmers to share experiences and skills and accessing resources.
(Interviewed by Ms. Radha Kusat on 6th October 2018)