Lincoln Graduate Head Of U.K. Research Group

Press, Volume C, Issue 29421, 25 January 1961, Page 15

Lincoln Graduate Head Of U.K. Research Group

A graduate of Canterbury College and Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, and winner of Lincoln’s coveted Bledisloe medal. Dr. H. P. Donald, w’ho is at present visiting Christchurch, is director of the United Kingdom Agricultural Research Council’s animal breeding research organisation. The organisation, which has its headquarters in Edinburgh, has farms and field stations in England. Scotland and Wales where dairy cattle, pigs and sheep are under study

"I have never been told that it is my business to improve livestock.” said Dr. Donald discussing the work of his organisation. “I would not knowhow’ to do that. What actually constitutes improvement very few people could say. but it is our business to provide the industry with information which will help it to alter its livestock in the direction in which it wants it to go. “We would like to be regarded as pilots, rather than captains of the ship. This means, in effect, that our work with all classes of livestock tends to vary from investigations, the results of which have a parctical interest to the industry, to genetical studies which are at present purely fundamental.” Objects Of Research For example, Dr. Donald said that with pigs his organisation was trying to devise methods of exploiting hybrid vigour with the aid of inbred lines—in this kind of work the desired outcome was a good pig rather than a good theory—but. at the other extreme. work with identical twins in dairy cattle was aimed at providing a good theory about the reason w-hy dairy cattle varied in production and was certainly not designed to produce a good cow from the twins.

Again in one of their flocks of sheep the rams were chosen entirely at random to sdte what would happen to the performance of the sheep. The results here had a theoretical value, whereas work of transferring fertilised eggs from one breed of sheep to another was largely of practical value in somewhat the same way as early studies of artificial insemination had an ultimate practical value. Dr. Donald said there were also intermediate projects which had both a theoretical and practical value. The blood typing of cattle could be used for such practical purposes as the checking of pedigrees, but it also had a considerable theoretical interest in relation to the question why various blood groups persisted in a breeding population of cows. Ticklish Question Dr. Donald said the selection of projects for study so that they would still be relevant when they were completed w-as a ticklish question in animal breeding He disliked a research programme of purely practical value as it was too difficult to look far ahead. Some very important changes were taking place in the animal industry in Britain, he said, and it was becoming clear that the problem of the future would be the development of animals suited to the new circumstances.

One of the changes was the development of large-scale bweding enterprises. Nearly all the chickens in Britain were, he believed, being bred by seven firms. These firms were employing geneticists to do their breeding for them. The Milk Marketing Board in England was breeding more than one million dairy cows. The Pig Industry Development Authority had five large pig testing stations and was soon going into the testing of boars. It was having to face up to the problem of the advice it should give the breeders who used its facilities and the kind of pigs to breed with the use of these facilities. Performance The emphasis in breeding was being increasingly placed on performance rather than on appearance. By performance he said he meant rate of growth, yield of milk, thickness of back fat. and number of eggs and similar factors. In all this, the role of the breeder was changing. In the future he would become a member of a team rather than being an individualist, but he would still have a part to play. Breeding was becoming a

process in which large numbers of animals, organisation, and electronic equipment such as computers had a part. So far, tfie sheep breeding industry was an exception to all this. The status of sheep breeding in Britain was not really distinguishable from that at the turn of the century, but it was doubtful whether this situation would last much longer. There was a considerable pressure from the industry to have sheep breeding placed on a more quantitative basis, with attention being paid particularly to lamb production. In the United Kingdom lamb production w r as already very high. It was a poor farmer who on low ground could not average 150 Idmbs weaned per 100 ewes and they could reach 200. but they were not satisfied with this.

Referring to New Zealand, emphasis on both wool and lamb production from sheep, Dr. Donald said ne believed that it was quite possible to attain a high level of production from a sheep in both respects. He could see evidence in poultry, pigs, and dairy cattle that there was a variation m the efficiency of feed utilisation. Fertility in Sheep Dr. Donald said he was willing to guess this was also true of sheep. If more efficient sheep could be found it should be possible to direct; the increased efficiency in any desired direction. Some breeds of sheep already had both high yield of w'ool and high fertility. On one of his organisation’s farms the Lincoln would produce 15 lb of w’ool and would give a 150 to 170 per cent, lambing, but it was a big animal, and not necessarily very efficient. The point was that it was possible to have these two characteristics, but something else had to be foregone. “I do not see any reason why this cannot be done. I think greater wool production and greater fertility can be achieved, but I expect that it w’ill be difficult and will not be done by using eye judgment only.” he said. Dr. Donald said it did not take a great stretch of imagination to envisage the day w’hen sheep would be driven in the same direction as the hen in the battery or the pig. Land w’ould become too valuably to be used as an exercising ground and outdoor lavatory for livestock. Production Factors

Increased production per animal w’as not necessarily a good thing. Important factors were production per man or acre or per £lOOO invested. In Britain there had been a considerable reduction in numbers of people working on the land, but production had increased. This had been achieved with machinery and a great deal of capital, and this meant that people responsible for this capital had to be more efficient. They had to be understanding and able

to adapt their farming to the needs of the moment. It could be assumed that rising agricultural production was a world-wide phenomenon. Whether this would result in making things easier or worse for New Zealand he did not know. That would depend on how fast the emergent countries could provide a market. In any case, Dr. Donald emphasised, efficiency would have to be a keynote of agricultural production. Work at Lincoln Dr. Donald, who is visiting his mother. Mrd H. P. Donald, of Christchurch, took a bachelor of science degree at Canterbury College and a master of agricultural science degree at Lincoln. His interest in genetics was fostered at Lincoln under Dr. F. W. Hilgendorf and in association with Dr. O. H. Frankel at the Wheat Research Institute. He was a lecturer on the staff at Lincoln when in 1934 he went to Edinburgh as a McMillan Brown research scholar. Dr. Donald had been on the staff of Edinburgh University for 10 years when he joined the Agricultural Research Council’s animal breeding research organisation in 1946, and four years later he became its director.