NCERA_OLD057: Swine Reproductive Physiology
Statement of Issues and Justification
Production agriculture continues to be of vital importance to stability of the overall US economy. If livestock producers are to maintain and improve the current level of competitiveness in the global market, it is essential that the efficiency of animal production continue to improve. Reproductive success remains the core to enhancing the efficiency and profitability of livestock production. The efficiency of pork production has increased due to developments in reproductive management including reduced age at puberty, increased utilization of AI, improved litter size and marked improvements in producers understanding of environmental and genetic effects on reproduction. However many aspects of the reproductive processes of swine remain poorly understood and this limits the development of technologies for still more efficient pork production. Research conducted by the NCR-57 committee members has made major contributions to our basic understanding of many biological processes in reproduction and provided technical information to improve efficiency of pork production. Goals of the NCR-57 are consistent with the priorty reseach objective of NCRA to develop improved animal production systems that are competitive, profitable and environmentally sound.Emerging and rapidly growing technologies in functional genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics provide techniques that allow rapid investigation of the many biological processes. Application of these technologies will be essential to enhance our ability to control and manipulate reproductive processes in farm animals. Although technology provides the methodology to discover genes and gene products involved with reproduction, a complete understanding of protein function and the many possible interactions of proteins involved will remain an even greater task. A thorough understanding of gene regulation and gene products (functional genomics) in complex reproductive processes is essential if we are to develop technologies beneficial to agriculture producers, which is directly tied to the NCRA priority research objective for Genetic Resources Development and Manipulation.
The NCR-57 committee comprises a diverse group of research and extension scientists with expertise across a broad spectrum of reproductive biology in domestic food animals. Members of the NCR-57 committee have had major impacts on understanding of reproductive biology in swine and other domestic farm species. NCR-57 provides a unique focal point for scientific exchange and critique, presentation of new theories and results of experiments, and establishment of collaborative efforts between participating stations. Continuing advancements and increased cost in science and technology, makes the forum that NCR-57 provides even more essential for developing collaboration, sharing reagents, techniques and providing a forum for open scientific discussion in the future.
Besides the development of new knowledge,the NCR-57 has been strengthened by meeting with state swine reproduction extension specialists and others in positions that provide direct interfacing with producer and consumer groups. Extension scientists provide NCR-57 with a unique opportunity to have input concerning reproductive problems facing producers and to aid in the transfer of new technology to the animal industry. The NCR-57 committee has invited industry leaders to its annual meeting and sponsors a biennial conference on topics concerning reproductive efficiency for the swine industry. A website, which will be located at Madison, Wisconsin, is in development and will be linked to NIMSS website to provide open access to conference slide presentations and technical information of interest for educators and producers.
The diverse membership and interactions of the NCR-57 committee functions to keep committee members informed about the latest theories and technological advances. Sharing of resources, reagents, techniques and informal critiques of ideas and research has increased the efficiency of cooperative research and expanded the abilities of individual research stations. Addition of a forum for interactions with extension scientists has brought new perspectives to the NCR-57 and provides an opportunity for rapid technology transfer to increase reproductive efficiency for producers across the United States.
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