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UCDAVIS CONTRIBUTED A woman poses with a calf. By Pat Bailey Gene editing — one of the newest and most prom- ising tools of biotechnology — enables animal breeders to make beneficial genetic changes, without bringing along unwanted genetic changes. And, following in the footsteps of traditional breeding, gene editing has tremendous potential to boost the sustainability of livestock production, while also enhancing food-animal health and welfare, argues UC Davis animal scientist Alison Van Eenennaam. Thanks to gene editing, this calf pictured with Van Eenennaam will not grow horns and will not have to go through the dehorning process. (Karin Higgins/ UC Davis) She examines the poten- tial benefits of genome edit- ing today, Feb. 17, at the an- nual meeting of the Amer- ican Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Boston's Hynes Con- vention Center. Her presen- tation is part of a session ti- tled "The Potential of Gene Editing to Revolutionize Agriculture," moderated by acclaimed molecular biolo- gist Nina Federoff. Van Eenennaam also will participate in a news brief- ing on this topic at noon EST on Saturday, Feb. 18, in Room 103 of the conven- tion center. Lessonsfromthe dairy industry Thanks to improvements made in the dairy industry through traditional breed- ing, a glass of milk today is associated with just one- third of the greenhouse gas emissions linked to pro- ducing a glass of milk in the 1940s, says Van Eenen- naam, a UC Cooperative Extension biotechnology specialist in the UC Davis Department of Animal Sci- ence. That was accomplished as traditional selective breeding improved the productivity of dairy cows so much that the num- ber of dairy cows in the United States dropped from a high of 25.6 mil- lion in 1944 to about 9 million today, even as the country experienced a 1.6- fold increase in total milk production, she says. Potential of gene editing for food animals "A number of breeding methods, including arti- ficial insemination, em- bryo transfer, crossbreed- ing and, more recently, ge- nomic selection, have been used to achieve these im- provements," Van Eenen- naam says. "Now, genome editing promises to com- plement traditional breed- ing programs by precisely introducing desirable ge- netic variations into live- stock breeding programs." She notes that genome editing has already been used to prevent livestock disease, including making pigs resistant to porcine reproductive and respira- tory virus, and to improve animal welfare by develop- ing dairy cows that don't re- quire horn removal. Additionally, research is underway to extend appli- cations of gene editing in the future. Gene editing might, for example, make it possible to produce off- spring of only one gender, such as only hens for egg- laying operations. Regulatory process key for gene-edited food animals The potential for apply- ing gene-editing techniques to make improvements in food-animal production largely hinges on future regulatory processes, ac- cording to Van Eenennaam. "It's not yet clear what regulatory status food-an- imals produced with gene editing will have," Van Eenennaam says, noting that gene editing does not transfer novel DNA into an animal, but can be used to make changes within the animal's own genes. "The resulting DNA se- quence may be identical to existing, naturally occur- ring DNA sequences," she says. "The prospect that gene-edited animals would be subject to the same type of regulations that apply to an animal drug — even though their genetic mod- ifications might be indis- tinguishable from those obtained through conven- tional breeding — is a con- cern for animal breeders who are eager to employ genome editing to comple- ment traditional genetic im- provement programs." Geneeditingcan compliment food-animal improvements The following is from an article in The Wichita Eagle by Mike Pearce. Greg Gardiner is a cow- boy. His wide-brimmed hat carries a band dark- ened by years of sweat and dust. Decades of 100-degree sun, 10-below cold and wicked winds from every direction have left his face as leathery as an old baseball glove. Be- low his lip is a small goa- tee and above it a wide trademark mustache. Several days after the biggest fire in the state's history swept through Clark County, Gardiner slowly drove along some of his family's 48,000 acres. Occasional tears left trails through the dust on his face, and he wondered whether he was witnessing the biggest natural disaster his fam- ily had seen since they'd arrived by covered wagon in 1885. Mixed in with the sor- row, though, were tears of happiness. "I still can't believe we didn't get anybody hurt or killed," he said. "My brother and his wife probably shouldn't be alive today, but they are." He found few signs of life in four hours of checking pastures. "I know how it sounds, but it's literally worse than I ever could have imagined," Gardiner said as he slowly drove by some of the esti- mated 500 cattle that had died in Monday's mas- sive wildfire. "They never stood a chance in a lot of these pastures, the fire was so fast." Calculating financial losses was nearly as up- setting as the sight of so many dead, bloated cat- tle. "You look at all of these fences, and most of them are going to have to be replaced," Gardiner said. Fencing costs about $10,000 per mile. His ranch is one of the largest, and most re- spected, in southwest Kansas. The quality of the family's Angus cattle has been a source of pride, and national acclaim, for at least 50 years. Among those 500 dead cows, Gardiner estimated, were probably 300 un- born calves of some of their finest stock. "You can figure they'd probably averaged about $5,500 apiece at a sale for their (breeding) poten- tial," Gardiner said. "This isn't the first catastrophe we've faced, but I think it's going to be the biggest speed bump we've run into for the ranch." ••• Kylene Scott, who ranches with her husband in the fire-affected area of Kansas, wrote a blog ti- tled Worst Day of My Life for the High Plains Jour- nal March 7. "I think I had them go- ing the right way, and then the wind switched. Now I don't know." When I heard the crack in my husband's voice yesterday afternoon, I knew it was bad. He's normally the calm, cool, collected one. A family friend alerted him to the fire in Clark County very near the Scott farm after we'd re- turned home from bury- ing my Dad yester- day. When they said the closet neighbor was be- ing evacuated he went as quickly as he could fear- ing for the cattle herd he'd worked the last five years to build follow- ing the death of his own Dad. I stayed behind with the boys at our house 40 miles away. When the wind switched at my house from south/southwest to the north, I began to worry even more and called him. At this point he was waiting out the fire and smoke in the wheat field, helplessly watching the house and barn burn. I wanted to be at the farm so bad, but there wasn't much that could be done. When he made it home unscathed I was pretty happy, but sad at the same time. Know- ing there was nothing we could do to fix what it took Mother Nature mere minutes to destroy. Fifty-two cows are on the farm, with about half or of them with young calves. Most are accounted for. All the grass is gone, as is the hay stockpile. He went and hauled water to the cows this morning and some are scorched and others have udders with burns. One cow is bawl- ing for her missing calf. "Those poor mommas," was my text reply to him this morning. I made my way early this afternoon to see the farm or what's left of it with my own eyes. As bad as I wanted to be down there, a piece of me dreaded the drive. The closer I got to the farm, the worse it got. Blowing dirt, darkening skies be- cause of the dust and aw- ful winds. I pulled in the drive, like I'd done a hun- dred times in the nearly 20 years I have been part of the family, and I had to stop my vehicle. The tears came and the heartbreak overwhelmed me. I thought of the old white farm house with the wonderful front porch, where my hus- band spent a large ma- jority of his childhood in and around. My fond- est memory is when we'd stop and see my hus- band's Grandma Pauline. She'd always have some- thing sweet to eat and a cold drink at the kitchen table. The home had been around for 100 years and still had a large portion of the family momen- tos in it. It was reduced to ashes and rubble. All that's standing is the chimney. I couldn't see the barn around the trees, but I again had to stop and sit when I pulled around the corner. The barn. The old barn with its red siding. I remember when my fa- ther-in-law had it painted and how proud he was because it looked so good. I remember when he laid the brick in front of the tack room and built a new door for it. My boys explored every inch of it when we worked calves last fall. You could "al- most" hear the horses munching in the stalls de- cades ago when you stood in the center alley. Now it's just a charred pile of tin. I realize the house and barn are just build- ings. Things can be re- placed. But dang, its so hard to see it all reduced to ashes and rubble. To see part of the Scott fam- ily history, more than a hundred years, just be gone. Just like that. It's hard. We've had incredible friends and family offer- ing help, hay and feed and it's heartwarming to know how much peo- ple care. Like I heard an Ashland, Kansas resident on the news this morn- ing being interviewed, it's just what southwest Kan- sas people do. Help and survive. ••• A Facebook posting, what some OSU Cowboys did on spring break. While covering the story of blowing ash and sand I ran across 2 young men working on a fence north of May. I was drawn to them be- cause they were wearing paint masks to protect them from inhaling the ash. I started with their names, Fussy Cook and Jackson Day who's dad is Craig Day, anchor and re- porter with channel 6 in Tulsa. They are students at OSU "Go Cowboys." They said I had to put that in. Instead of going to the beach and enjoy- ing the sand they came to northwest Oklahoma to enjoy our sand and ash. These guys brought some fencing supplies and good Ole work ethic. If you want to help them go 4 miles north of May OK in harper county. Take 2 to 3 pair of good leather gloves, good boots, paint masks and a roll of barbed wire, t posts, and wire ties and a good pair of fencing pliers. The pay is to know you are help- ing someone in need. You will go home with stories, more cuts and scratches than if you fought a bob- cat. Maybe a wind burn or a sun burn. Do it now. ••• I was proud of our Cal- ifornia CattleWomen Board of Directors, who voted to donate $1,000 toward fire relief, at our Spring meeting. JeanBartonhasbeen writing her column in the Daily News since the early 1990s. She can be reached by e-mail at jbarton2013@gmail.com. JEAN BARTON Fires devastate plains states ranches By Cara Lombardo The Associated Press MADISON, WIS. Wiscon- sin resident Jean Smith snatches up entire stocks of her beloved Kerrygold Irish butter from stores when visiting family in Ne- braska, thanks to an anti- quated law in her dairy-ob- sessedstatethatbansitand any other butter that hasn't been graded for quality. "We bring back 20 bricks or so," Smith said, not- ing she plops a tablespoon of the Ireland-made but- ter into her tea each morn- ing. "It's creamier, it doesn't have any waxy taste and it's a richer yellow." Tired of trekking across state lines to stock up, she and a hand- ful of other Wisconsin but- ter aficionados filed a law- suit this week challenging the law, saying local con- sumers and businesses "are more than capable of deter- mining whether butter is sufficiently creamy, prop- erly salted, or too crumbly." Nogovernmenthelpneeded, they say. On the books since 1953, the law is strict: It re- quiresbutterstoberatedon various measures — includ- ing flavor, body and color — by the federal government or people licensed as but- ter and cheese graders with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Wisconsin'sgradingscale dictates that the highest- gradedbuttermust"possess a fine and highly pleasing butterflavor."Gradersmight describe a butter as "crum- bly," "gummy" or "sticky," and its color as "mottled," "streaked" or "speckled." LAW Ban on Irish butter sparks fight in butter-loving Wisconsin Smog Check (MOST CARS & PICK-UPS) 527-9841 • 195 S. 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