What is the significance of embryo transfer in dairy cows?

The significance of embryo transplantation in dairy cows mainly includes the following aspects:

(1) It can give full play to the reproductive potential of well-bred cows and improve reproductive efficiency. Through embryo transfer, the donor cow can save a long gestation period, thus greatly shortening its reproductive cycle. In addition, by performing superovulation on the donor cow, several, ten or even dozens of embryos can be obtained at one time. In this way, the number of offspring produced by the donor cow in its lifetime is increased by dozens or even hundreds of times compared with the natural state. times, greatly unleashing the genetic potential of well-bred cows.

(2) Accelerate variety improvement. A well-bred bull plays a far greater role in breeding than a well-bred cow, because a bull has far more offspring than a cow in its lifetime. The reason why cows produce fewer offspring than bulls is that, first, the number of mature eggs they produce is limited, and second, the development of embryos in the mother takes up a lot of time in the cow's life. If well-bred cows are allowed to produce more mature eggs and remove the burden of developing fetuses, the number of offspring the cows will give birth to in their lifetime will be doubled. Embryo transfer is an effective method to make cows more productive. Its use can greatly improve the reproductive capacity of cows, increase the accuracy and intensity of selection, and thus accelerate the speed of breed improvement.

(3) Embryo transfer may be the safest method for introducing or exporting germplasm. Because embryos usually carry few pathogenic microorganisms. Freezing embryos is also an excellent means of preserving germplasm. Unlike sperm cells, an embryo is a complete individual. In this way, freezing or freezing an embryo not only preserves the genes of an individual, but also preserves the genetic tissue. To reconstruct an extinct population from sperm requires many generations, but to reconstruct a population from embryos can be achieved in just one generation.