{"id":874322,"date":"2026-08-30T22:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T22:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874322\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T22:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T22:34:11","slug":"crush-side-dna-test-delivers-reliable-results-in-less-than-24-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874322\/","title":{"rendered":"Crush-side DNA test delivers reliable results in less than 24 hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

FAST, on-farm genetic testing for cattle is practical and achievable for northern producers, according to University of Queensland research.<\/p>\n

In partnership with Meat & Livestock Australia and the Department of Primary Industries, a team from UQ\u2019s Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation tested low pass nanopore sequencing on three commercial cattle properties.<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Elizabeth Ross<\/a> said the team produced reliable data for age, genomic breeding values (GBVs) and parentage for about 24 animals in less than 24 hours on each farm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe platform provides a practical solution for northern beef systems because it allows producers to obtain core genetic information on farm without multiple musters or lengthy lab turnaround times,\u201d Dr Ross said.<\/p>\n

Low pass nanopore sequencing reads about ten percent of the total genome, or 300 million DNA positions. It compares to SNP array-based genotyping, which has been used since the late 1990s and reads 30,000-100,000 DNA positions.<\/p>\n

Dr Ross said it gives a good indication of an animal\u2019s overall genetic merit and also reads markers that attach to the DNA as the animal ages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis process solves the problems associated with long mustering intervals, imprecise birthdates, uncertain parentage and the lengthy turnaround time of traditional laboratory-based genotyping,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The team completed DNA extraction, sample processing and library preparation in about four hours, with stable overnight sequencing conducted on farm.<\/p>\n

Dr Loan Nguyen<\/a>, an ARC Early Career Industry Fellow working in an applied genomics, said the method was pioneering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt achieved a breakthrough in age prediction, estimating the age of young cattle to within less than 6 months,\u201d Dr Nguyen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also confirmed that hair is an excellent sample type for this kind of work, as it is already routinely used by producers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means producers can take samples when animals are put through a crush for routine management practises and on-farm genetic testing can begin straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beef Central first wrote about the crushside DNA analysis project in this 2023 report\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A producer survey carried out as part of the project found strong interest in rapid on-farm genomics, particularly for bull selection, culling decisions, identifying replacement females and strengthening pedigree accuracy.<\/p>\n

More than 80pc of respondents said parentage verification would be very useful, while half valued the 24-hour turnaround times.<\/p>\n

While cost remains a barrier, 40pc of those surveyed said they would be prepared to pay a premium for faster results.<\/p>\n

Dr Nguyen said challenges remained before the technology could be commercialised, but the work showed what was possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve shown that a single low-cost sequencing test can provide accurate age estimates, parentage values and GBVs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis all-in-one approach dramatically improves the practicality of genomics in Australia\u2019s northern herds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research was funded by Meat & Livestock Australia, The University of Queensland and the Department of Primary Industries.
\nThe Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation is a research institute at The University of Queensland, established with and supported by the Department of Primary Industries.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FAST, on-farm genetic testing for cattle is practical and achievable for northern producers, according to University of Queensland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,105],"class_list":["post-874322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}