JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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In this paper, a simple farm management information system is introduced. This system was administered through cooperation between farmers and an information agency. The results showed that the farmers were willing enough to accept the system. Nevertheless, having an accounting system is the first step toward the establishment of an information system, which is used by only %42 of the sampled farmers. The main reason for this is the lack of knowledge about the benefits of such systems. In other words, if farmers were aware of the benefits of accounting systems, they would accept them easily. The results also showed that the farmers who use accounting systems are more successful in their production activities.

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In this study external fat-tail dimensions (upper, middle and lower width, length, length of gap, depth and upper circumference) and fat-tail weights collected on 724 Lori-Bakhtiari sheep were used to study external fat-tail dimensions and their relationships with fat-tail weights. Sheep were 3 months to 6 years old and slaughtered at the industrial slaughter house of Joneghan in Chaharmohal and Bakhtiari province in 2003. The mean of fat-tail dimensions were estimated as 15.83, 23.85, 24.73, 26.52, 14.96, 14.12 and 52.59 cm for upper width, middle width, lower width, length, length of gap, depth and upper circumference, respectively. Fat-tail weight varied from 0.10 to 20.60 with overall mean of 2.71 kg. Fat-tail percentage varied from 1.18 to 37.18 with overall mean of 11.87 percent. The effects of fixed factors of age, sex and body condition of sheep on all of traits were highly significant (p<0.0001). The least square means of all traits except fat-tail percentage were increased with increasing age of sheep. Lowest least square mean (± s.e) of 2.12 ± 0.25 kg fat-tail weight and 7.91 ± 0.72% fat-tail were observed for sheep having body condition score of 1 and the highest least square mean with fat-tail weight of 9.84 ± 0.56 kg and fat-tail percentage of 20.59 ± 1.63 were observed for sheep having body condition score of 5. Estimation of correlation coefficients among external fat-tail dimensions and fat-tail weight were positive and varied from 0.60 between upper fat-tail width and fat-tail weight to 0.83 between upper circomference of fat-tail and fat-tail weight. Upper circumference of fat-tail accounted for %69.5 of variation of fat-tail weight. This study showed that fat-tail weight in live sheep of Lori-Bakhtiari could be estimated using external fat-tail dimensions with very high accuracy (r = 0.904).

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In order to detect genetic variation of native fowls in Mazandaran native Fowls breeding station, blood samples were collected from 100 male and female of birds (1:11). The DNA of the blood samples was extracted according to an optimized salting out protocol. The extracted DNA was amplified through polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Of the twenty random primers (10 mer) were used in this study, fourteen yielded satisfactory PCR. The total 63 polymorphic and 77 monomorphic bands were detected for the 14 primers. The number of bands displayed for each primer ranged from 4 to 16 with 200-2100 base pairs. The highest and lowest percentages of polymorphism band were observed for primer 9 (72%) and primer 14 (16%) respectively. The band sharing frequency was calculated for each primer, which ranged from 79 to 96. The genetic similarity within population and genetic variation were estimated as 89 and 11 percentage respectively. In conclusion, the existence of high level of polymorphism after ten generation of selection may indicate the accuracy of genetic evaluation program, suitable selection strategies and also large enough effective population size in this breeding flock.

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