Engineering better Australian seafood and beef

Research conducted in the Breed Engineering Theme of the CSIRO Food Futures Flagship aims to boost the value, competitiveness and sustainability of Australia’s beef and seafood industries.

• 23 July 2008 | Updated 12 January 2012

• Breed engineering
• Boosting beef
• Advanced data analysis
• Novel gene networks
• Select seafood
• Novel aquaculture feeds
• Projects

Breed engineering

Leading-edge breed engineering and production technologies being explored include:

• hybrid cattle production via testes stem cell transfer
• novel gene networks and ultra-rapid genetic analysis
• elite aquaculture genotypes and sterile aquaculture stocks
• fish vaccine development
• understanding the genetics of disease resistance
• novel aquafeed alternatives to wild harvest fishmeal.

Boosting beef

The Testes Cell Transfer project aims to raise the performance of Australia’s northern herd (18 million Bos indicus) by developing an alternative to artificial insemination that will permit mass production of Brahman/Angus hybrids.

While Bos indicus breeds of cattle (such as Brahman) thrive in tropical northern Australia, their meat has a lower market value compared with Bos taurus cattle (such as Angus) which are adapted to temperate conditions.

The project aims to transfer donor testes stem cells from Angus bulls to Brahman bulls. These Brahman bulls will mate naturally with Brahman females to produce Brahman/Angus hybrid calves of superior growth rate and meat quality. The first hybrid calves are expected by 2010.

Advanced data analysis

Molecular and quantitative genetics are being combined in the development of computational techniques for analysing data relating to livestock genomes.

The volume of such data is growing exponentially. Assays that score the genotype at more than 60 000 locations along the genome are now available for livestock species, and the challenge is to relate these to the performance of individual animals.

Configurable computer chips such as field programmable gate arrays are being used as dedicated genetic processors to better model the information contained in the genetic data. This will lead to better predictions of genetic merit, allowing rapid genetic improvement through the selection of superior animals for breeding.

Novel gene networks

Analytical tools are being developed to extract greater meaning from genetic information such as genome sequence and gene expression data. This will enable a better understanding of the relationships between genes and livestock production.

The analytical tools will consider more information and yield more biologically meaningful results than has been previously possible, tackling the complexity of gene networks, (DNA segments that influence the transcription of genes into proteins).

A specific goal in beef breeding is the tailoring of muscle fibre composition. Farmers of the future will use these systems approaches to select the best combination of parental genotype to yield offspring with tailored meat that is efficiently produced and of consistent quality.

Select seafood

Selective breeding programs developed under the Breed Engineering Theme for Australia’s major aquaculture species – Atlantic salmon, black tiger prawns, abalone and Pacific oysters – are internationally recognised.

The programs are producing elite aquaculture genotypes with commercial advantages including improved growth rates, product quality, disease resistance and production efficiency.

The Food Futures Flagship is providing research and development input to an Australian Prawn Farmers' Association initiative to develop methods for breeding from domesticated prawns.

This research aims to increase production and drive earnings of Australian prawn farmers up by A$100 million by 2013 through:

• enhanced commercial harvests from domesticated stocks, rather than wild broodstock progeny
• development and implementation of efficient and practical farm-based selective breeding programs
• development and application of genetic markers for health and genetic diversity monitoring
• techniques for producing sterile all-female stocks.

Atlantic salmon research projects are developing:

• a commercial breeding program for Tasmania’s A$250 million Atlantic salmon industry (improvements of up to 10 per cent per generation are possible for key commercial traits)
• an experimental DNA vaccine to counter amoebic gill disease, a major health issue for Tasmanian Atlantic salmon farms
• knowledge and methods for better selection for disease resistance and product quality.

The abalone aquaculture industry is being helped to establish commercial breeding programs and maximise export returns through:

• understanding and applying genetics to influence traits of commercial importance
• understanding the genetic architecture of hybrid breeding for abalone
• developing tools and breeding strategies to support commercial selective breeding programs
• understanding product quality and developing efficient tools to monitor quality traits.

Collaborative research for the Pacific oyster will maximise genetic and economic gains through:

• breeding strategy modelling and application to upgrade and refine the established breeding program
• development and updating of an economic production model to allow the identification of traits of importance for research and inclusion in the breeding strategy.

Novel aquaculture feeds

The aquaculture sector depends on wild-harvest fishmeal as the main source of protein and oils in feeds. Developing a cost-effective alternative feed source is a high priority for the Breed Engineering Theme and is closely linked to the genetic improvement of aquaculture stocks.

One project is investigating microbial flocculation, a process that creates a closed-pond environment for prawns in which excess nutrients fuel the controlled accumulation of beneficial microbes that provide an additional food source for the prawns.

The benefits will include:

• efficiency gains through better feed use
• more uniform prawn growth and reduced pumping
• easier maintenance of good pond-water quality
• reduced nutrient discharge and disease risk (due to reduced water transfer).

Projects

Beef

Aquaculture

Find out more about the Food Futures Flagship research.