National Dairy Research Institute,Indian Council of Agricultural Research

Zinc (Zn) is an essential trace mineral involved in antioxidant defense, immune regulation, and metabolic processes in livestock. Hydroxy trace minerals such as zinc hydroxychloride (ZnOHCl) have gained attention due to their greater ruminal stability and potentially higher bioavailability compared with zinc sulphate (ZnSO4). This study evaluated the comparative effects of ZnOHCl and ZnSO4 supplementation on growth performance, hemato-biochemical parameters, antioxidant status, immune response, and Zn bioavailability in growing crossbred calves. Twenty-four male calves were randomly allocated to four dietary treatments for 120 days: a basal diet without Zn supplementation, 80 mg Zn/kg DM as ZnSO4, 40 mg Zn/kg DM as ZnOHCl, or 80 mg Zn/kg DM as ZnOHCl. Zinc supplementation, whether as ZnSO4 or ZnOHCl, did not significantly affect the growth performance of calves. However, it significantly enhanced antioxidant enzyme activities, total antioxidant capacity, immunoglobulin concentrations, and both cell-mediated and humoral immune responses, while reducing lipid peroxidation (P < 0.05), with no significant differences were observed among the Zn-supplemented groups. Hemato-biochemical parameters were unaffected by Zn supplementation, except for increased plasma globulin concentration and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, with no significant differences among Zn-supplemented groups. Zinc retention, along with plasma and erythrocyte Zn concentrations, increased significantly with Zn supplementation, with the highest retention observed in calves receiving 80 mg Zn/kg DM as ZnOHCl. Supplementation did not influence the retention or plasma concentrations of other minerals. Overall, Zn supplementation, irrespective of source or level, improved antioxidant status, immune function, and Zn retention in growing crossbred calves.

This paper presents an intelligent real-time monitoring system designed for precise control of yoghurt fermentation across various milk types. The fermentation kinetics of different milk types were systematically analyzed to investigate changes in the physicochemical properties of yoghurt. The system enabled continuous data acquisition and real-time visualization of key fermentation parameters including Electrical Conductivity (EC), pH, Temperature and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) by leveraging deep learning (DL) and machine learning (ML) models for precision prediction of fermentation dynamics. Several DL and ML models are empirically evaluated in this study, including Feedforward Neural Network (FFNN), Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), Gaussian Process Regression (GPR), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Support Vector Regression (SVR) and Transformer-based models. Among these models, the FFNN (featuring two hidden layers with 10 neurons each) demonstrates superior predictive performance, achieving the highest accuracy on test data (Residual range = -0.103 to 0.106, R2 = 0.999, RMSE = 0.079, MAE = 0.073 and MBE = -0.026). User-friendly software was developed to interface with the monitoring system, enabling real-time data acquisition, visualization, recording, and predictive tracking, along with decision-support functionalities that provide data-driven diagnostics and corrective recommendations to promptly address fermentation deviations. The developed platform is well-suited for both industrial-scale and small-scale dairy operations, enhancing reproducibility, minimizing process variability, and facilitating product standardization. By enabling dynamic, real-time process control and forecasting future fermentation outcomes, this intelligent system represents a significant advancement over traditional fixed timetemperature protocols.

Indicine cattle (Bos indicus) show notable resilience and disease resistance compared with taurine breeds, but the genomic basis of these traits remains largely unexplored. Identification of genomic elements for immunity will enable future controlled crossbreeding programs using molecular breeding methods. Therefore, we performed a genome-wide comparison among Nelore, Gir, and Hereford breeds using their whole-genome sequences, majorly focusing on immune-related structural and sequence variation. Our aims were to catalog insertions, deletions, and single nucleotide variants (SNVs) that intersect immune loci and known quantitative trait loci (QTLs), identify runs of homozygosity and selective-sweep signals, and prioritize candidate genes for follow-up functional studies. We retrieved whole-genome sequencing data for Nelore breed (n = 14) and Gir breed (n = 20) from NCBI using the SRA toolkit. Reads were checked with FastQC v0.12.1, filtered with Fastp 0.23.4 to remove low-quality bases and adaptors, and retained high-quality reads based on Q20 and Q30. The reads were mapped to the Bos taurus reference (ARS-UCD2.0) with Burrows-Wheeler Aligner - Maximal Exact Matches (BWA-MEM) v0.7.19-r1273; alignments were processed with Samtools 1.19.2 for sorting, duplicate marking, and MAPQ ≥ 20 filtering. Variants (insertions, deletions, SNVs) were called with GATK HaplotypeCaller (GATK v4.4.0.0), hard-filtered, normalized with Bcftools 1.19, and annotated with SnpEff 5.2b and SnpSift v5.2 f. Common variants were identified via in-house Python scripts; immune loci were detected from InnateDB and keyword searches; QTL overlaps were identified using Animal QTLdb; and DAVID was used for GO and KEGG enrichment (P < 0.05). ROH islands were defined in PLINK as regions shared by > 50% of individuals or samples, and selective sweeps were detected with RAiSD; genes overlapping ROH islands and RAiSD peaks were prioritized as candidate selection signatures. GATK v4.4.0.0 identified 1,884,058 indels and 13,997,533 SNVs in Nelore breed, and 1,457,337 indels and 11,627,881 SNVs in Gir breed, with Ti/Tv ratios of ~ 2.26 and ~ 2.25, respectively. Nelore breed has more number of variants than Gir. We observed frameshift insertions in TLR3 and LOC508441 (CD33) in both the breeds and frameshift deletions in JAM3 in Nelore breed and PAX5 in Gir breed. The variants were also identified in the regulatory regions of both breeds. The high-impact SNVs were in CD46 and IL26 genes in Nelore breed, and PLG gene in Gir breed. Genome-wide scans using RAiSD identified selective sweeps in 707 candidate genes in Nelore breed and 165 in Gir breed. Comparing the ROH and RAiSD results, we prioritized the genes ANKRD11, MAGI2, LOC132345096, FOXP2, TCF12, and ATP5PO in Nelore breed, and the genes MEFV and ORIF1 in Gir breed. These genes are found in QTLs linked to milk and health traits. Functional enrichment showed that the genes exhibiting all the three variants belong to immune pathways such as, NF-kappaB signaling, T-cell receptor signaling, and MAPK signaling in both breeds. These results reveal breed-specific genomic variation locating immune loci and its associated QTLs and provide a list of candidate genes and regions for experimental validation and marker development to improve disease resistance and productivity in Indicine cattle.

Cyclone-driven climate disasters and variability, compounded by small landholdings, low agricultural productivity, and declining natural resource quality in coastal regions, have exacerbated food, livelihood, and economic insecurity for rural agrarian communities. This study employs a participatory, quasi-quantitative framework using Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) to construct mental models of smallholder farming communities in coastal India. Data were gathered from 360 respondents, and 24 maps were created at the village level under 8 blocks in 3 coastal districts of West Bengal through focus group discussions. These maps were quantitatively aggregated at the district level and subsequently combined to develop Social Cognitive Maps for the entire coastal West Bengal region. The study identifies perceived impacts of cyclone-driven climate disasters and assesses the effectiveness of adaptation strategies for building resilience pathway in coastal regions. FCM-based scenario analysis suggests that integrating adaptation strategies such as conservation and management of natural resources, improved crop management practices and building capacity and risk bearing ability functions synergistically, fostering a robust, perceived resilience pathway for smallholder farming communities. Natural resource management, integrated pest and nutrient management, and capacity-building and extension activities, were identified as major contributors to the anticipated changes within the system driven by the most perceived resilience pathway. This study offers critical insights for decentralized climate adaptation planning and highlights actionable areas for policy intervention in cyclone-affected coastal regions. The FCM framework presented here provides a transferable tool for integrating local knowledge into adaptive governance and resilience planning.

Immunomodulatory potential of Proline rich polypeptides (PRPs) isolated from colostrum of indigenous (Gir, Sahiwal, Tharparkar), exotic (Holstein Friesian) and crossbred (Karan Fries) cattle were evaluated and compared. Swiss male albino mice were orally administered PRPs at a dose of 25 mg/kg body weight per day for seven consecutive days. An immunoreactive model was established by orally administering 100 mu L of Escherichia coli MTCC 723 (1 x 10(7) cells/mL) per mouse on the 3rd and 4th day. The effects were assessed through changes in body weight, immune organ indices (spleen, liver, small and large intestine), phagocytic activity, lymphocyte proliferation in response to lipopolysaccharide (B cell mitogen) and Concanavalin A (T cell mitogen), secretory immunoglobulin (IgG and IgA) concentrations and serum cytokine (TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma & IL-10) levels on the 8th day. No significant adverse effect on body weight was observed. Spleen indices were more significant (p < 0.05) in the negative control group, whereas Gir PRPs and Sahiwal PRPs treated groups were able to moderately restrict the enlargement. PRPs fed groups especially from indigenous cattle breeds Gir and Sahiwal exhibited significantly higher phagocytic activity, increased secretory immunoglobulin (IgG and IgA) levels, enhanced anti-inflammatory responses (elevated IL-10) and lower pro-inflammatory cytokine levels (TNF-alpha and IFN-gamma). Conversely, animals fed with PRPs derived from exotic and crossbred cattle demonstrated comparatively better lymphocyte proliferation activity in response to both B-cell (LPS) and T-cell (Con A) stimulation. Observed differences in the immunomodulatory potential of the chosen breeds could be attributed to breed specific variations in peptide profiles such as amino acid composition (notably higher proline content in indigenous breeds) and peptide sequence of PRPs.