Improvement of buffalo for milk, meat and draught: A review

Abstract

Buffalo improvement programme undertaken through progeny testing at individual and small herds produced low response to selection in almost all the herds primarily due to large generation interval, low intensity of selection and less accuracy of the progeny test. Associated progeny testing for Murrah breed by associating all the herds, increased the population size, increased intensity of selection of candidate bulls and enabled to select the bulls on large number of progeny. Crossbreeding of nondescript and swamp buffaloes with Murrah and Nili Ravi has significantly improved the milk production potential of the local stock in all states and in the southeast asian countries. Crossbreeding also resulted into higher body weight at birth and subsequent weight at maturity in F, and triple crossbred animals than the local stock that could produce higher quantity of meat. Riverine breeds exhibited higher draught potential as compared to nondescript and swanip buffaloes. Open nucleus breeding system with and without MOET has been-initiated to enhance the rate of genetic improvement while marker assisted selection has been emphasized to facilitate early selection of individuals of desired characteristics to improve the productivity of buffaloes for desired traits.