Irene Breider news story on the collaboration with Jennie Pryce.

Hi, it’s Irene again! This time I will tell you about the next phase in my PhD project (which is a joint collaboration between The University of Nottingham and SRUC). I have arrived at the genomics part of my project and will be looking at the genomic background of methane emissions in dairy cattle. The focus will be on the relationship between methane emissions and feed efficiency. This is of interest because the way the animal processes the feed determines the substrates that become available for the bacteria in the rumen.
For this aim, my supervisory team and I will be collaborating with Jennie Pryce from La Trobe University, Melbourne. I will perform a GWAS on a combined dataset of the data I analysed before from the Langhill research herd of SRUC and data collected from the research herd positioned on Ellinbank, Victoria, Australia. For both herds methane emissions were measured. For Langhill this was done with the use of a laser methane detector and for Ellinbank this was done with the use of an SF₆ tracer. Hopefully within this aim I can identify SNPs that are related to both methane emission and feed efficiency, so that selection for breeding can take place early in life and progress can be made even faster.

Irene Breider