Butter nostalgia?

Lynne Rossetto Kasper: Why don't you like our Holsteins?

Jérôme Chateau: I do like your Holsteins, but I also like the farmland and your farmers. I think over the past several decades things have changed and the dairy economy has reached another stage. Right now there are really two tracks in a very intensive mode of production. The needs are different for each segment, and the Holstein is not necessarily the best-adapted to either.

The selection of the Holstein has been really, really intense over the past 50 years thanks to artificial insemination among other things. That very nice cow has been made into a very tall, skinny, narrow and fairly weak animal with very high production. It is very well-adapted to a high-grain diet and intensive operations, but it has lots of problems, even in those operations that are less intensive as well. That's the problem.
LRK: They have been developed to give us a maximum amount of milk. But what are you saying, that they have problems with their health or the quality of the milk?

JC: Especially with their health, utility and longevity. Today a Holstein barely makes it to 4 years on average -- barely two calves, not even two lactations. The turnover is very high and it has very little longevity. With lots of metabolic diseases and a very weak fragility, it's very hard to get those Holsteins bred back. The production has reached a stratospheric level -- the Holstein has very few components so its milk is not particularly rich. All those elements make the breed fairly unsustainable.

LRK: You have Normande cows and you offer those cows for breeding in the U.S. What are the qualities of the Normande cow?

JC: The Normande, unlike the Holstein, has not been selected as intensely on milk production only, on quantity only. It has been selected for a variety of traits that include muscularity, body condition, and the components and the quality of the milk. For those reasons -- and because it has retained its original qualities and is a more balanced type of cow that doesn't look as skinny as the Holstein -- it is more adapted to grass-based systems.

The average American dairy cow produces more than 20,000 pounds of milk every year. Most of these cattle are Holsteins, a breed whose naturally high milk yield has been enhanced by decades of selective breeding. The U.S. dairy industry intensified selective-breeding efforts in the 1960s. Since then, the average milk yield in Holsteins has doubled, but there has also been a substantial reduction in fertility.
Recent research by scientists at the Agricultural Research Service’s (ARS) Animal and Natural Resources Institute (ANRI) in Beltsville, Maryland, and the University of Minnesota (UM) suggests there may be a genetic connection between increased milk yields and reduced fertility. Since the 1960s, UM scientists have maintained a herd of cattle that were never exposed to the selective-breeding practices used by the U.S. dairy industry. As a result, their genomes represent a snapshot of a time before dairy cattle selection efforts intensified.

Scientists in ANRI’s Bovine Functional Genomics Laboratory and Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory teamed up with UM colleagues under the leadership of UM geneticist Yang Da to compare the genomes of modern Holsteins with those of the UM cattle. While scientists have significantly improved their understanding of animal genetics over the past 250 years, questions about how long-term breeding influences genome structure are still largely unanswered.

Fortunately, improvements in storage, preservation, and shipping technology make it easier to maintain and transport genetic material today than at any other time in history – and that makes comparative studies involving historic DNA more practical than ever.

The investigation involved about 50,000 genetic markers known as “single nucleotide polymorphisms,” or SNPs (pronounced “snips”), drawn from about 2,000 cattle. ANRI geneticist John Cole coordinated collection of Holstein DNA samples from the ARS National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP), the U.S. Holstein Association and five U.S. universities, including UM.

Genome analysis
Under the leadership of ANRI geneticist Tad Sonstegard, the scientists extracted DNA and genotyped the samples with an Illumina Bovine SNP50 BeadChip, a genetic analysis tool developed by Sonstegard and ANRI geneticist Curt Van Tassell in collaboration with industry, university and other ARS partners. The BeadChip is a glass slide capable of generating genetic information that can assist scientists in comparative genetic studies. Each BeadChip is designed to characterize 12 different samples, and each sample is analyzed at more than 50,000 SNP marker locations, referred to as “loci.”

The scientists decode all the SNP marker information to determine the specific allele combinations at each locus for every sample. In this case, an “allele” represents one of the two detectable forms of a gene. DNA information gleaned from the BeadChip allows scientists to determine which allele was inherited from the mother and which was inherited from the father. An animal can receive the same allele type from both parents or a different allele from each parent. Differences in alleles can result in different characteristics.

“A decade ago, this kind of genotyping work was much more expensive and time-consuming,” Van Tassell says. “The BeadChip makes it possible to get the information faster and more economically.” The scientists analyzed the allele data to determine which regions of the genome were most likely to have been affected by the selection practices used by the dairy industry to improve milk production over the past 40 years. The researchers are now focused on six genomic regions that had been identified as being associated with milk yield.

The genomic changes made evident by the analysis were “extensive,” Sonstegard says. As much as 30 percent of the Holstein genome may have been influenced by standard breeding practices.

“Small changes in allele frequency do occur randomly,” Van Tassell says. “But significant changes like these are rare and are almost certainly the result of selection.”

The scientists observed that many of the genes and chromosome regions associated with milk yield were also related to lowered fertility rate, supporting their hypothesis of a genetic link between the two traits. Since high yield and high fertility are both desirable traits, it’s important for producers to recognize that there may be a tradeoff between the two.

“Ultimately, this work may help us understand the limitations of biology as we work to breed a high-performance dairy cow,”

The natural flavoring that is used as an ingredient in Challenge Unsalted Butter, Challenge Unsalted Whipped Butter and Challenge Unsalted European Style Butter, is a natural flavor distilled from fermented milk. It is added to the cream prior to churning and produces flavor compounds that give our unsalted butter a distinctive, pleasing taste. It is an all natural ingredient that is approved by the USDA and the FDA.