Promotion is over
Three days of celebrating the conferment of the doctoral hat and sword are over.
A relaxing weekend at Yyteri
It is incredible, I am living now already for about 9 years in Finland and this was the first time that I was in Yyteri at the Baltic sea… I have to say, it was a really nice surprise how beautiful the western shore of Finland is there, we certainly will come back for another visit.
Waiting for the lunar eclipse
In Tampere the public sauna is open this night so that people can go to sauna while waiting for the Lunar eclipse. And while we have here temperatures above 30 degrees, this is highly appreciated (at least the swimming, though, 30 does not feel too bad, if you leave from 115…)
Cherry tree planted
We finally managed to plant some sweet cherry trees. Lets see, although it is said they will survive climate zones 4 here in Finland, I am not sure if they will…
New publication
Our publication “Validated quantitative trait loci for eggshell quality in experimental and commercial laying hens” has been published as short communication in Animal Genetics.
Summary
Compromised eggshell quality causes considerable economic losses for the egg industry. Breeding for improved eggshell quality has been very challenging. Eggshell quality is a trait that would greatly benefit from marker‐assisted selection, which would allow the selection of sires for their direct contribution to the trait and would also allow implementation of measurements integrating a number of shell parameters that are difficult to measure. In this study, we selected the most promising autosomal quantitative trait loci (QTL) affecting eggshell quality on chromosomes 2, 3, 6 and 14 from earlier experiments and we extended the F2 population to include 1599 F2 females. The study was repeated on two commercial populations: Lohmann Tierzucht Rhode Island Red line (n = 692 females) and a Hy‐Line White Plymouth Rock line (n = 290 progeny tested males). We analyzed the selected autosomal QTL regions on the three populations with SNP markers at 4–13 SNPs/Mb density. QTL for eggshell quality were replicated on all studied regions in the F2 population. New QTL were detected for eggshell color on chromosomes 3 and 6. Marker associations with eggshell quality traits were validated in the tested commercial lines on chromosomes 2, 3 and 6, thus paving the way for marker‐assisted selection for improved eggshell quality.