Revolutionizing livestock sustainability: Pioneering breeding strategies for superior forage biomass and quality

Pawan Kumar Dash; K. N Ganesan; N. Manivannan; S. Vellai Kumar; N. Senthil; R. Pushpam

doi:10.14719/pst.4094

Authors

Pawan Kumar Dash Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, India1Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, India https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4166-5186
K. N Ganesan Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, India https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1982-7318
N. Manivannan Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5918-1799
S. Vellai Kumar Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9277-457X
Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2930-0715
R. Pushpam Centre for Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641003, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6991-6090

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14719/pst.4094

Keywords:

Forage biomass, Quality improvement, QTL mapping, Genomics, MAS

Abstract

Livestock primarily rely on forage crops as a source of feed and nutrition. The milk productivity of a cow or meat production in goat/sheep could directly be associated with the availability of a sufficient quantity of quality green fodders with essential nutrients in a balanced ratio. Feeding the cereal/grass: legume fodders in the required proportion will not only improve productivity but also the reproductive capacity of animals. However, many countries of the world experience a huge gap between demand and availability of green fodder. In this context, emphasis should be placed on developing efficient forage genotypes with increased biomass and quality as per the requirements of animals, duly considering their digestibility. Breeding approaches encompassing required classical approaches, including wide hybridization to exploit natural genetic variability, biotechnological tools such as transgenic technology, marker-assisted selection, genomic selection, and various omics techniques alongside high-throughput phenotyping using multispectral cameras, would help to sustain livestock productivity by meeting out the present and future fodder requirements coupled with enhanced nutrients

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