City station develops tech to make sex-sorted semen straws to increase female calves, up milk production

Chennai: The National Dairy Development Board’s Semen Station at Alamadhi near Red Hills on Chennai’s outskirts has successfully developed a technology to make ‘Sex Sorted Semen Straws’. Sex sorting of bovine semen is to enhance the probability of birth of female calves that in turn can help increase milk production. The straw is like a test tube in which frozen semen is kept and used for artificial insemination. The method is adopted as natural mating often leads to impure semen entering the system affecting quality of offspring.NDDB chairman Meenesh Shah said the board had developed the indigenous sex sorting technology with the support of the Union ministry of animal husbandry and dairying. Shah said the production and field trials of indigenously developed technology for sex sorting of bovine semen is in progress and the results are expected to arrive by Aug. “We started the trial run of the indigenous technology in March at Alamadhi and to date, 5,000 doses of sex-sorted bovine semen have been produced. Post the review of the trial results, the technology can be dedicated to the nation,” he said.The frozen semen of bulls of high genetic merit being produced at Alamadhi is benefiting dairy farmers in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Kerala and Karnataka among others.Annually, the station produces and sells 10 million semen doses under the brand ‘Superior Animal Genetics that commands a market share of close to 40% across the country. Spread over 358 acres, the Alamadhi Semen Station has been in operation since May 2015.Consistently rated in the “A” category by the Central Monitoring Unit of the ministry, the station can produce 100 lakh doses of frozen semen per annum. It houses 300 bulls of 25 breeds of high genetic merit in a hygienic bio-secured environment for the production of disease-free semen.The station has 14 indigenous cattle breeds including Kangeyam of Tamil Nadu; Punganur and Ongole from Andhra Pradesh; Vechur from Kerala and Hallikar, Amritmahal, Malnadu Gidda of Karnataka. Punganur and Vechur are deemed the smallest cattle breeds in the world. With the high genetic merit semen, the daily milk potential of indigenous breeds is about 15 litres a day, and that of exotic breeds ranges between 25 litres a day and 50 litres a day, he said.At present, an imported semen straw is available in the market for 1,000. The straw produced by the NDDB will be sold at a lower price to farmers/cattle owners, he added.