UF Cattle Scientists Use AI To Improve Quality and Quantity of Meat, Dairy (UF/IFAS Blogs)

UF Cattle Scientists Use AI To Improve Quality and Quantity of Meat, Dairy

For a century, researchers have tracked genetic traits to find out which cattle produce more and better milk and meat. Now, two University of Florida scientists will use artificial intelligence to analyze millions of bits of genetic data to try to keep cattle cooler and thus, more productive.

Raluca Mateescu, a UF/IFAS professor, and Fernanda Rezende, a UF/IFAS assistant professor – both in animal sciences — gather hundreds of thousands of pieces of information about cattle genetic traits. They plan to use UF’s supercomputer, the HiPerGator, to analyze that data. With the information Mateescu and her team get from the HiPerGator, they can give ranchers better recommendations on which animals to keep and breed for an improved quantity of beef and dairy.

“AI has rapidly emerged as a powerful approach in animal genomics and holds great promise to integrate big data from multiple biological layers, leading to accurate prediction of future traits – for example, meat yield,” Mateescu said. “My research group is investigating the use of AI methods to develop approaches to accurately predict the value of certain genes. Ultimately, we plan to provide more effective strategies to improve animal productivity.”

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