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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 1986)
Tuesday ; September 2, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3B Which came first: cow or calf? Embryo transfer technology being used to upgrade herds ibly to theo® II her baldl\« r’s report. I up at an ar:l rou gh of fil fells him/f-B eighborhoodi epis that atiB pi obe to fml drug use J ' what hara .■ is dramatit I e public as York rn s special foi J, l ugs as tkr )lem. I lucer Lane'l lis associate I, u to be kom acre that k'i :ed at our I fat her of foe e's adopted working iru: i New Jew t to let their homes wht;: ision. prestion oh nit drugais cl, director and menta ays that tie x? on the us icroin and untry, hee rds of $8! lea 3 ski iche FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) —It gets a little confusing, but sometimes it’s fun to play mental games. A cow bears a calf, except the cow isn’t really its mother — it’s the calf’s grandmother. And although the calf was born just today, its sire was shipped for slaughter live years ago. The mother was sold to another farmer, also years ago. How is it possible for a grand mother cow to bear its own grand child, and for the parents to be somewhere else at the time of birth? The answer is embryo transfer technology, referred to as ET, and Fergus Falls veterinarian Ken Nord- lund is one of the pioneers of this relatively new cattle-breeding method. The process involves transferring the fertilized eggs of cows that have proven to be superior milk produc ers into the ovaries of other, infe rior, cows. The idea is to improve herds by getting as many offspring as possible from superior cows, while using in ferior producers as surrogate moth ers. According to Nordlund, one of the earliest successful ET s in the United States was performed in Ot ter Tail County in 1972. “When that first calf was born, it was enough to make the WaJJ Street Journal," Nordlund said. “But the method was a lot different back then." The first ET s involved major sur gery on both the donor and the re cipient cows. The cows were shipped to a veterinary clinic, put under an esthesia on an operating table, and the fertilized embryos were removed and transferred surgically. Nordlund performed his first suc cessful non-surgical ET in 1979 and anothei in 1982. Since then, he has performed dozens of succesful ETs, resulting in more than 150 births. The non-surgical method involves washing the embryos out of the do nor cow’s ovary with a phosphate- buffered saline solution. In effect, the solution is pumped into a cow’s ovary and then pumped back out again. When the fluid comes out, the microscopic embryos come with it. Nordlund then searches through the fluid with a mi croscope to locate each embryo. Because the cow has been treated with a fertility drug, the ovary will usually contain more than one em bryo. The average is seven, but some cows have produced more than 30. This is called “superovulation.” After they have been separated from the fluid, the embryos can ei ther be placed in a recipient cow or frozen for later use. Performing an ET costs from S250 to S750, Nordlund said. Much depends on how many successful births are produced each time it is done. The more successful births from each attempt, the lower the cost. “We re getting more efficient all the time,” Nordlund said. “Out of the first 100 transfers 1 did, 23 of them were successful. Now we have about 65 percent turn into pregnan cies, and 45 percent of the frozen embryos turn into pregnancies.” Freezing embryos has only come into use within the past three years, k Nordlund said. It’s a valuable tech nique because it prevents the loss of embryos that can’t he transferred to donors immediately. If, for example, a cow produces 30 embryos, there will not likely be 30 donor cows available. T he estrus cvcle of the recipient cows must coin- Work part of the education at North Carolina college SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — Students at Warren Wilson Col lege can do more than analyze a Shakespearean sonnet or ace the law boards — they also can breed pigs, install a sink or replace a truck valve. “Everyone has to work," said Dr. Reuben Holden, retiring president of the small Presbyte rian-related liberal arts college near Asheville. “It has a very lev eling el feet on the whole campus. “The effect is that the students go out into the world with a good solid educational background in liberal arts, plus the best of two worlds... they can do things with their hands." Classic Fil fhe college’s 470 students alias suouw work 15 hours per week in ex- nervous rl change for room and board. The arniugbasM 67 campus work crews include auto mechanics, foresters, com- lint aiul.4 puter programmers, plumbers, mlv I’orsclsB (Itisini'sdE photographers and admissions recruiters. The farm crews pro vide f ruits, vegetables and 70 per cent of the beef for the campus dining hall. In addition, each student must complete a 60-hour non-credit service project. Many complete their service in Third World vil lages in what Holden calls a “mini-Peace Corps.” Others go to their hometowns and, for exam ple, help build a new church. Holden said the students’ edu cation was further broadened by the makeup of the student body. About 12 percent come from 22 foreign countries; and while the college was founded in 1894 by the Presbyterian Church, it has students from 21 different de nominations, including Hindu and Buddhist. “We don’t require chapel any- more, but we still feel strongly the need for a basis of values m any education,” Holden said. Some of the graduates go into social work, hut many also go into business, law and medicine. Student life is not all studying, working and serving. Holden said main students take advantage of the recreational pursuits offered by the Blue Ridge Mountain set ting, such as camping, hiking, boating and cave exploration. Many faculty members have come from larger universities — particularly Yale, where Holden was a secretary before he came here 15 years ago. “Here they can do their own thing — set up courses of their own, using our farm and forests and not having to worry about a lot of bureaucracy,” said Holden. “The drawing power of a little college is that they can play an im portant part in a small commu nity" Program to train deputy officers FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Broward Sheriffs Office has more than 400 correctional officers to handle detainees and prisoners at three county lockups. Although they are deputy sheriffs, they do not have arrest powers and do not all carry guns. A pilot program is changing all that. Called “cross certification,” the program was initiated this year by sheriff Nick Navarro to bridge the separation of correction and road patrol officers and provide a larger complement capable of serving in ei ther capacity whenever an emer gency arises. The first class of 17 selected cor rections officers was graduated re cently after 220 hours of additional studies and training to qualify them as road patrol deputies, complete with arrest powers. The added training provided the deputies emphasizes search and sei zure, criminal law, patrol tech niques, crimes against property and person, accident investigation, fire arms, emergency medical response and rules of evidence, explained Commander Tom Mclnerney, in charge of training for all deputy sheriffs. “Under certain conditions — hur ricanes, riots or a shortage of road deputies — the sheriff can call on these people to help out,” added Mc lnerney. Something else for the new grad uates to look forward to is six weeks of field training with seasoned road officers, Mclnerney said. After that, they return to their regular duties. Targeted for the program are 53 jailers now assigned to transporta tion, security, booking and the emer gency response team, Navarro said. Apart from enhancing the qualifi cations of detention officers, cross certification is a morale booster. “It gave me a better understand ing of what the road patrol does,” said Debra Reggio, one of the grad uates, dubbed “criminal justice spe cialists.” Having arrest powers could prove useful whenever she’s delivering de tainees and prisoners to courts, hos pitals and other facilities, she said. “When something happens out there, the public looks at the uni form and the gun and expects you to do something,” she said. Before attaining her new title and without arrest powers, any action she might have taken could have been a liability to the department. A1 Demarest, a retired Army ma jor with 20 years experience in the military police, was in the first grad uating class. ’T’ve got more credibility now,” Demarest said. “I’m better equipped to do the job and can explain road patrol problems to others.” Reggio and Demarest admit the additional training and certification have enhanced their opportunities for advancement. However, neither expressed a de sire to leave detention work. Navarro and Mclnerney are al ready planning to reverse the cross certification program to qualify road officers as detention deputies. “Why not?” observes Navarro. “It would give us tremendous flexibil- ity.” T raining for detention deputies includes state and federal rules and regulations for corrections facilities, sanitation, inmate classification and institutional disturbances. tide with that of the donors. Induc ing estrus in enough cows at the proper time is tricky business and not always successful. “The only problem is that there is a significant loss when an embryo is frozen,” Nordlund said. “Freezing an embryo places a lot of trauma on that mass of cells. A sperm cell can be frozen unharmed relatively easily because it is so small. But an embryo already contains about 164 cells and ice crystals can form on them and destroy them.” . To prevent them from being de stroyed, Nordlund says embryos are treated with a glycerol solution. But the glycerol must be removed from the embryo before it is transferred to a donor. Because ETs are becoming more simplified, it is becoming economi cally feasible for more farmers to have them done. But Nordlund says the operation is still only for the best of cows. “A calf should be worth from SI,500 to $2,800 each to make it worthwhile,” he said. “This is some thing that is only for superior cows, there’s no question about that.” Researchers seek to grow crops in sand YUMA, Ariz. (AP) — Sand lies in a 90-foot-deep layer over the Yuma Mesa — not very promising farm land. Yet, with the right kind of irri gation and fertilizer, that sand can be prime agricultural land, research ers say. Two University of Arizona soil sci entists say they’ve demonstrated that it’s possible to get commercially ac ceptable yields of vegetable crops on Mesa sand. Dr. Bryant Gardner and Robert Roth, Yuma Mesa Agricultural Cen ter, use self-moving irrigation sys tems, careful management of the ni trogen fertilizer levels and a special, modified deep chisel plow to grow a range of vegetables. They’ve tested asparagus, broc coli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, lettuce, potatoes, sweet corn and watermelons. Roth says that the Mesa consists of 100,000 acres of fine, river-bottom sand. Some of the land is being used as a bombing range. Only 25,000 acres are within an ir rigation district, with some of the land developed for raising citrus trees, - jojoba and asparagus. “ The most important result of out research is to show that we can get the same yields of high-value vegeta ble crops off marginal land as most growers get from prime agricultural land,” Roth says. Furrow or flood irrigation is inef ficient on this deep sand, the soil sci entists say. Water sinks so quickly into the sand that an excessive amount has to be applied to reach from one side of the field to the other. Nitrogen fertilizer follows the wa ter — straight down. Self-moving, low-pressure sprin klers, spray or drop hose techniques save energy and make both water and fertilizer use more efficient. Their experimental sprinkler irri gation system is a self-moving lateral design. With light, frequent irrigations, the soil stays moist during seed ger mination. Roth and Gardner say that seeds can be planted shallowly. Stand establishment under this sprinkler system is comparable to that on heavier, flood-irrigated soils, they say. You can’t lose With Lou’s new and used! Thousands of Aggies sell their books back to Loupot’s each semester, so they have plenty of used books for every class you’re taking. No digging through lists and piles of books to find the ones you need for your class section — Loupot’s does all the work for you. Just hand them your schedule and they get your books for you — before classes start! □ □ □ □ "We care about Aggies - just as we have tor over 50 years. Thank you tor your business.'' 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