Sire infertility is a problem for the reproductive performance of swine, despite the greater attention that has long been given to the female side of the equation.
We know that 25% of the boar herd has less than 80% conception rates, which is considered unacceptable by industry,” says Karl Kerns, assistant professor of animal science at Iowa State University and 2014 alum of the same department.
By adding even one more pig to a litter, we could increase production by an estimated $120 million annually. To improve that, we need to learn more about what influences the capacity of sperm to fertilize. That means developing better tools for researching sperm health – and making it easier for the industry to use the knowledge we already have.
Kerns is leading a new five-year grant from the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture to support research on boar sperm capacitation — the biological pathways that support spermatozoa’s ability to fertilize. The grant is one of 14 funded nationwide under NIFA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative – Animal Reproduction Program. This project, and two other recent awards to collaborate with colleagues at the University of Missouri and the USDA Agricultural Research Service, total $1.7 million in federal support for Kerns’ work studying male fertility.
