Pustertaler – revival through product quality and fitness
The old dual purpose breed called “Pustertaler” from Southern Tyrol just escaped
extinction and now celebrates an incredible comeback. Various lucky circumstances
helped to revive this breed again. On the one hand the farmers in the area the
Pustertaler come from return to past traditional and cultural values and on the other
hand famous people from the business and the media world became aware of the
breed exactly in the right time. Meanwhile Pustertaler cattle are very expensive at
the auction in St. Lorenzen / Southern Tyrol. In average Pustertaler heifers cost
1.700 to 2.000 €, the few cows that are sold are even more expensive.
The breed has now been established also in Germany and especially in Bavaria.
Pustertaler are kept on the Lehr- und Versuchsgut Oberschleißheim for example for
the Bavarian purebreeding and nucleus programs, on the Martelshof near Tutzing
and in Börnchen/Saxony. Even some Fleckviehbreeders have used semen from
Pustertaler sires on average Fleckvieh cows, either to take advantage of the fattening
abilities of the bull calves or just because they were curious about the production of
the F1-cows.
Bavarian Fleckvieh genetics takes every effort to promote classical dual purpose
breeds. Semen was taken form the original Brown-Swiss bull Wirkil and the AnsbachTriesdorfer bull Pregor. But even more we are interested in the future of the
Pustertaler breed, because it has very important traits that we can hopefully use for
our Fleckvieh some day. These mostly secondary traits will become important in
cattle breeding in future even though we know that these traits can be improved only
very slowly in purebreeding. It is not enough for us to keep only a semen or embryo
bank.
The precondition for a successful prevention of the extinction of a breed is a broad
genetic variation within the pure bred animals. In order to find out about the actual
level of inbreeding and the genetic relationship to other breeds and to show the milk
and beef production several investigations were made. The results were quite
surprising.
Important traits of the Pustertaler breed:
Longevity, hard claws, good character, robustness, excellent feed conversion,
extraordinary beef quality
1. Genetic relationships and variability
An investigation initiated and financed by our friend Jeff Know / Australia (IdentiGEN /
Animal Genetic Sciences / Dublin / Ireland) about the genetic relationship between
the Pustertaler and the Vogesen, Pinzgauer and Simmental cattle, showed
interesting results. For the DNA-testing 31 hair samples from Pustertaler (24 from
Southern Tyrol, 7 from Bavaria) as well as 27 samples from Vogesen cattle were sent
to Ireland. The predisposition for the selection of was that the animals were not to
strongly related in their pedigree. 20 DNA-markers (mikrosatellites) were used for
these investigations about the genetic relationship.
The results showed that Pustertaler cattle are quite closely related to Pinzgauer
cattle. This is not surprising at all because in the late 20ties of the last century the
breeders were forced to use Pinzgauer sires on the red Pustertaler cows by the
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livestock breeding act. The grade of relationship can be shown by a phylogenetic
tree. But it has to be taken into consideration that the Pinzgauer are only slightly
closer related to the Pustertaler than the Vogesen cattle for example, which seems to
prove the theory that Vogesen cattle were influenced by Pustertaler.
It is interesting that genetic variation within the Pustertaler and the Vogesen cattle is
not less than in all other European cattle breeds, at least at the DNA-level. This is
even more astonishing if you take into consideration that there are not more than 500
Pustertaler cattle left. Maybe this results out of the “monogamy” practised on the
mountain farms in Southern Tyrol (each cow had her own bull).
2. Milk production from Pustertaler and F1 Pustertaler x Fleckvieh crosses
Most of the purebred Pustertaler in Germany are kept in suckler cow herds. This
means that we know the milk performance of only a few cows.
2.1 Purebreeding
This is the milk production of one Pustertaler cow kept at the LVG Oberschleißheim:
Pussi:
1st lactation, 305 days: 4.172kg milk, 4,18% fat, 3,76% protein
2nd lactation: 1st test milking: 20kg milk
The herdsman says about the cow:
This Pustertaler cow is the “good spirit of the herd”, she looks for contact to humans,
loves to be in the milking parlour and does not move a lot in the loose barn
2.2 Crossbreeding (Pustertaler x Fleckvieh)
Mausi:
S:
Preuss Opem 601000
D:
Malve 11/11,4
7.799kg milk, 4,14% fat, 3,57% protein
DS: Senner 58286
DD: Medina 10/9,6
7.007kg milk, 4,18% fat, 3,70% protein
1st lact.: 284 days: 6.072kg milk, 4,11% fat, 3,56% protein
2nd lact.: 1st test milking: 41,7kg, 2nd test milking: 35,7kg
The herdsman says:
The crossbred cow is extremely good natured but nevertheless has a good ability to
assert herself in the loose barn and has a good udder health and fertility
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Genetic variants of milk proteins:
Their importance for milk processing efficiency and their incidence within
different cattle breeds
3. Milk proteins
At the institute for chemistry and physics / research centre for milk and food at the
University of Freising – Weihenstephan we work since almost 20 years on genetic
variants of milk protein because some of them are important for cheese making.
3.1 What does milk processing efficiency mean?
An economic cheese production depends on the rate of yield (rate of yield means
for example cheese per 100kg milk). In general the milk processing efficiency is
influenced by the following factors:
a) Fat and protein (casein-) content of the milk
b) Milk renneting properties
c) Casein number
It is obvious that the rate of yield depends on the fat and protein content of the milk.
The renneting properties can be easily obtained through modern measurement
technology. The results show that the milk processing efficiency is the better the
shorter the renneting time and the higher the curd firmness are.
As far as the casein number is concerned, it shows the percentage of the casein
fraction of the protein and usually is about 77%, but it can vary between 74 – 81%.
Last but not least the casein content and the casein number are important for the milk
processing efficiency not the protein content in general.
3.2 What does genetic variant mean?
95% of the nitrogen compounds of milk are protein and 5% are non-protein
compounds as for example urea. The proteins divide into 77% casein and 18% whey
proteins. There are four major types of casein molecules: alpha-s1-casein, alpha-s2casein, beta-casein and kappa-casein, the main fractions of the whey proteins are
alpha-lactalbumin and beta-lactoglobulin. Each of these 6 protein fractions show
genetic variants. These variants are like the blood type – the only difference is that
they occur in milk. They don’t change during the life of a cow and are written with
capital letters.
1 letter determines the genetic variant, 2 letters determine the genotype. I you want
to characterize a milk sample each of the 6 protein fractions must have two letters,
for the protein fraction kappa-casein this can be for example AA or BB (then an
animal is homocygous) or it is AB (which means the animal is heterocygous). If a milk
sample has three variants in one protein fraction, the milk from two or more cows was
mixed. The milk processing efficiency depends primarily on the genotypes of kappacasein and the beta-lactoglobulin.
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3.3. About the importance of the genetic variants for milk processing
As far as kappa-casein is concerned the genotype BB leads to a shorter renneting
time and a better curd firmness than the genotype AA. The genotype kappa-casein
AB is inbetween kappa-casein BB and kappa-casein AA as far as the renneting
characteristics are concerned.
For beta-lactoglobulin BB the casein content is about 0,09% higher (at the same
protein content) and the casein number is 3% higher (78,7% compared to 75,7%)
than in the genotype beta-lactoglobulin AA as shown in table one. The genotype
beta-lactoglobulin AB is in between. As a conclusion one can say that for kappacasein the renneting characteristics become worse from BB to AB to AA and with
beta-lactoglobulin the casein content and the casein number become smaller from
BB to AB to AA.
3.4 Occurrence of the kappa-casein and beta-lactoglobulin genotypes within
three different cattle breeds
The tables 2 and 3 show how often the genotypes kappa-casein BB and betalactoglobulin BB that are important for the cheese production efficiency occur.
Unfortunately we had only 34 milk samples of Pustertaler cows – which means that
the results have to be interpreted carefully. We tested 300 milk samples from
Pinzgauer cows and more than thousand Fleckvieh samples over the years.
When you look at table two, the desired genotype kappa-casein BB occurs quite
often (18%) among the Pinzgauer and the genotype kappa casein AB (that has better
renneting properties than kappa-casein AA) occurs at a rate of 49%.
Pustertaler Sprinzen and Fleckvieh do not vary a lot as far as kappa-casein BB and
AB are concerned. The frequency of 8 and 6 % is quite low. The genotype betalactoglobulin BB that is responsible for a good casein content and casein number
occurs at a rate of 63% in Pinzgauer, and the Pustertaler also have a high frequency
of this genotype: 44%, whereas the frequency is only 26% among Fleckvieh. The
undesired genotype beta-lactoglobulin nearly does not exist among the Pinzgauer
(4%).
The cheese making efficiency of milk depends on the favourable kappa-casein and
beta-lactoglobulin-types as well as on the protein content. In order to judge a certain
breed for the cheese making ability of its milk, one has to take the frequency of
certain desired genotypes and the protein content into consideration.
We would like to thank Dr. Hugo Valentin from the Fleckvieh breeding association of
Southern Tyrol for the milk samples of the Pustertaler and the breeding association of
Traunstein for the milk samples of the Pinzgauer.
4. Beef quality of Pustertaler sires
Since a long time Pustertaler are known for their extraordinary fattening abilities and
their excellent beef quality. In former times Pustertaler steers were in great demand
in Austria and Italy. Kaltenegger (1887) reports carcass yields of more than 65% (fat
included), which is unimaginable in our times. The beef quality was never recorded
because of the small number of cattle slaughtered.
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Not before 2002 we had the possibility to test DNA-samples for carcass traits. Now
Bavarian Fleckvieh Genetics and the Simmentaler Society of Southern Africa sent
semen samples of Pustertaler sires to Australia to have them tested for marbling and
tenderness.
Already in the last issue of the Fleckvieh-World we informed you about the results
regarding marbling. Now we are going to present you the results of the Pustertaler for
tenderness.
These first results show that Pustertaler can easily compete with Angus, Wagyu and
Shorthorn regarding marbling and tenderness.
The beef quality has to be constantly improved to make the consumer eat more beef
again. Unfortunately we don’t have enough cattle to present secure carcass data –
but a beginning was already made.
5. Pustertaler become international
In South Africa a small Pustertaler herd was build up out of imported embryos. Ken
Baxter, a Fleckvieh breeder from Piet Retief was impressed by the history of the
Pustertaler so much that he decided to help to safe and further spread the breed.
Meanwhile further farmers became interested and now they are about to organize a
breeding association in cooperation with the Simmentaler Society of Southern Africa.
Because the name “Pustertaler” has a suggestive meaning in Africaans the breeds
ame was changed to “Supertaler” in South Africa. The great advantage is that the
local Sanga-breed, the Nguni that is adapted to the climatic conditions is very similar
to this breed and they can be used for absorption crossing or stabilized crossing
programns. We wish our South African friends lots of success – we are definitely
going to help them.
The Fleckvieh breeding association of St. Lorenzen takes care of the main breeding
area of the Pustertaler. In their web site (http://www.fleckvieh-suedtirol.it) interested
cattle breeders are offered further information and invited to look at the photo gallery.
How can the Pustertaler-breeders in Germany organize themselves?
This is the question many Pustertaler-enthusiasts have already asked themselves.
Therefore we are looking for further people interested in a breeding association or
club. Please contact Bavarian Fleckvieh Genetics if you want to have more
information about this issue. We would gladly coordinate any efforts in this regard.
Because this is an old dual purpose breed it would be disappointing to use this breed
only as a beef breed.
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