Abstract
THE opening session was devoted to general considerations of animal genetics. H.C.McPhee described the United States Department of Agriculture's long-term inbreeding projects with pigs, sheep, and poultry, and the emphasis now being laid upon measuring the more complex physiological characters; and in reviewing the work at Wiad, Sweden, G. Bonnier mentioned the economy in numbers of experimental animals made possible by the use of monozygotic twins, and the similarity to plant breeding techniques now being obtained with poultry, where the mixed sperm from many males can be used in artificial insemination. W. K. Hirschfeld and G. M. van der Plank struck notes for many succeeding speakers in directing attention to the distinction between frugal and less frugal breeds and families relative to production, and to the need of precise studies on differential demands upon the components of a ration. Their advocacy of the progeny test was pressed further by A. L. Hagedoorn, who suggests restricting to élite ‘nuclei’ of breeding stock the function to be sole progenitors of their kind.
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NICHOLS, J. Animal Breeding in the Light of Genetics. Nature 144, 818–819 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144818a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144818a0