Evaluation of Three Non-Invasive Pregnancy Diagnosis Tests (Modified Seed Germination Inhibition Test, Urine Barium Chloride Test and Milk Copper Sulphate Test) in Buffalo

Abstract

F or profitable and sustainable husbandry practices, accurate pregnancy diagnosis in cattle and buffalo has paramount importance. Optimum reproduction of buffalo is impeded by its delayed maturity, silent heat, irregular estrous cycles, seasonal breeding, anoestrus and long calving intervals (Mondal et al., 2007; Guraya, 1997), and a lot of slunk buffalo calves are found in slaughter houses. To improve the reproductive performances, scientists have established and practised several pregnancy detection techniques such as rectal palpation, radiography, ultrasound technique, and an assay of hormones and rosette inhibition test for buffaloes (Pawshe and Purohit, 2013). All these techniques need trained skilled personnel and also sophisticated laboratory equipment and procedures, which are beyond farmers' capacity. For these reasons, researchers are still working to find an economical, user friendly and door step technology for buffalo pregnancy detection. Punyakoti test, a seed germination inhibition test, was developed for pregnancy detection in human at ancient Egypt papyri, adopted by Veena and Narendranath (1993) with suitable modifications. Observing the germination inhibition percentage and reduced shoot length of wheat seeds early studies reported the techniques as a bioassay for pregnancy diagnosis in cattle and buffalo (Aswathnarayanappa et al.,

The Utility of Punyakoti Test for Pregnancy Detection in Artificially Inseminated Dairy Cattle: The Case of Smallholder Farming in Zambia

“…One of the most important management activities needed to pursue, for optimal reproductive performance, is diagnosis of early pregnancy in dairy cows (Crowe et al, 2018;Szenci, 2021). Accordingly, there are many techniques that can be used to diagnose pregnancy, for example ultrasound scanning, rectal palpation, hormonal assay, and the milk progesterone test (Rahman and Saha, 2020;Fontes et al, 2022;Lavon et al, 2022). However, many farmers especially those under smallholder dairy farming systems are unable to diagnose pregnancy (Zulu et al, 2013), particularly employing these techniques.…”

“…Although Punyakoti technique is cheap, non-invasive and generally simple to perform (Rine et al, 2014;Skálová et al, 2017), farmers will likely favour additional attributes such as efficacy for true pregnancy or non-pregnancy status and rapidity of the test. Thus, the turnaround time of five days, with this technique, and the uncertainty over the earliest time to conduct the test with desirable efficacy are crucial factors to deal with (Rao Krishna and Veena, 2009;Rahman and Saha, 2020). Towards sound decision-making in regard to the day, after insemination, which is suitable for farmers to conduct Punyakoti test, this study revealed significant differences in mean germination values between AIC and non-AIC and AIH on day 30, and not on day 22.…”

“…There are reports of Punyakoti test application in many countries (Rahman and Saha, 2020) with some of them repeatedly recommending its application in pregnancy detection (Rine et al, 2014;Rahman and Saha, 2020). However, to date, dairy farmers in Zambia have not utilized Punyakoti test probably because, like other livestock farmers, their awareness of pregnancy detection technologies is generally low (Abigaba et al, 2022).…”