Is there an opportunity to produce milk with increased levels of desired minerals?
Human mineral intake varies widely around the world, which results in different countries facing different health challenges. Scientists at the Animal Breeding and Genomics Centre (ABGC), in collaboration with scientists at NIZO food research, have studied the genetic and non-genetic effects on milk concentration of selenium, calcium, potassium, zinc, magnesium and phosphorus. This information is important for the evaluation of opportunities to produce milk with increased levels of desired minerals. The results have shown that there may be possibilities to change the level of selected minerals in milk through selective breeding, although it appears that farm management would be more effective for selenium. Morning milk samples of 1,860 Dutch Holstein-Friesian cows from 388 commercial herds in the Netherlands were used for this study. The concentration of minerals was determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry. Variance components were estimated using an anima
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