The study aimed to analyze the adoption of 22 technologies on dairy buffalo production in selected sites in the Philippines. A total of 666 farmer-informants who were previously exposed to training and other extension support services on dairy buffalo production were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaire. Dichotomous (yes or no) frequency and percentage responses along five stages, i.e., 'awareness', 'interest', 'evaluation', 'trial', and 'adoption' were transformed to sigma (Z) scores for adoption. Frequency responses for 'number of years of adoption' were likewise transformed to sigma scores. The two sigma scores were added to get the total adoption scores for each technology. The total or combined adoption scores (dependent variable) for all technologies were then tested for linear correlation and multiple regression with selected socio-economic traits, farm characteristics, and other independent variables. Most of the farmer-informants had at least 75 percent adoption rate in animal health care, improved forage feeding, estrus detection, and feeding of calves with colostrum. Multiple regression analysis indicates that attribution scores, years of experience in dairying, technical assistance, animal inventory, distance of the farm from a buffalo R and D institution, access to information materials and income from dairying positively and significantly influenced adoption scores. To increase adoption, improving the attribution by farmers to technologies as regards their relative advantage, compatibility with existing farm operations, trialability, and simplicity should be given priority consideration in designing and implementing extension delivery systems since it is the most powerful predictor variable to adoption.

Systematic studies on expression and characterization of toll like receptors (TLRs) in buffalo and cattle will help to understand the innate immune response specific to each species of animals. TLR4 gene is one of the most studied innate immune receptors which is mainly triggered by lipopolysaccharide. Therefore, the present study was carried out to investigate the mRNA expression and sequence analysis of TLR4 in buffalo in comparison to that of cattle. In vitro expression of TLR4 was assessed by challenging the Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMC) with bacterial LPS which showed significant increase of TLR4 gene expression (P LT= 0.01) in buffaloes when compared to cattle. Further the comparison of mRNA sequence of TLR4 of buffalo and cattle revealed 96 percent similarity with the cattle sequence. The primary structure of protein showed the highest percent of leucine amino acid for both the species of animals. At the same time, the number of Leucine Rich repeats (LRR) of buffalo is varied from those present in cattle TLR4. Alpha helix is the prominent secondary structure, however, there were few amino acid variations between buffalo and cattle in certain regions of TLR4 which altered the three dimensional conformation of TLR4 proteins, this in-turn possibly can influence the binding affinity and interaction with pathogens which may influence the difference in immune response in buffalo when compared to that of cattle.

Milk fatty acid composition of Murrah buffaloes was determined in present study. Samples were collected from 10 lactating buffaloes and were analysed for fatty acid profile using AOCS official method. Murrah milk fat was having 71.6 percent saturated fatty acids (SFA), 27.97 percent unsaturated fatty acids. C16:0, C18:1c, C18:0, C14:0 and C12:0 were the five most abundant fatty acid (82.5 percent of total fatty acids) in the Murrah milk. Palmitic acid, myristic acid (14:0) and stearic acid (18:0) together constituted approximately 85.8 percent of saturated fatty acids by weight. Short chain fatty acids (C4:0, C6:0), medium chain fatty acids (C8:0, C10:0, C12:0), and long chain fatty acids (C16:0, C18:0, C16:1, C18:2) were 1.82, 4.56 and 49.96 g/100 g respectively. Mono-unsaturated fatty acid were 26.79 percent of the fatty acids in milk, mostly oleic acid (18:1). Poly-unsaturated fatty acids constitute about 1.18 percent by weight of the total fatty acids. Linoleic acid (18:2) and alpha-linolenic acid (18:3) accounted for 0.88 and 0.30 percent by weight of the total fatty acids.

In this research, Data of milk yield, fat and protein percentage of Khuzestani buffalo were used. The daily records of milk yield were collected in the south-west of Iran where buffalo experienced a hot climate. The data set was constructed with 8,123 records of 1,430 first lactation buffalo. A univariate random regression model (RR/CF) was applied to data. Regression of additive genetic effect based on Legendre polynomials from the day of lactation was considered in the model. The results showed that maximum residual variance for the milk and fat production was estimated at the beginning of the lactation period. The minimum amount of additive genetic variation of milk and fat traits was seen in the early lactation period and the maximum amount of the component was estimated at the end of the lactation period. The lowest heritability of the mentioned traits was at the beginning of the lactation period. The level of this parameter increased to mid-lactation and was at its maximum during the late months of lactation, then decreased to the end of lactation. The estimated additive genetic correlations between close test-days were higher than faraway test-day records for each milk yield and milk fat content. Based on the results of this study, a random regression model with fitting orders 3 and 4, seems to be suitable for additive covariance functions in order to analyze the milk test-day records of buffaloes.

Murrah is a predominant milch breed of buffalo in India with superior genetic potential for milk production. Estimation of genetic parameters for production and reproduction traits is prerequisite for making breeding plan and efficient management decisions. This work was undertaken to understand the influence on performance traits by various factors (genetic and non-genetic) along with assessment of genetic parameters in Murrah buffaloes. The genetic parameters were figured using mixed model least-squares analysis. The results revealed that season and period in which animals calved, affects the performance of Murrah breed and may be considered during its evaluation. The heritability estimates for first lactation 305 days/less milk yield (305FLMY), first lactation total milk yield (FLTMY), first Lactation Length (FLL1), Wet average (WA), Herd average (HA), Age at first calving (AFC1) and Age at first service (AFS1) were 0.39+-0.10, 0.29+-0.09, 0.14+-0.09, 0.29+-0.09, 0.3+-0.11, 0.27+-0.09 and 0.22+-0.09, respectively. The phenotypic and genetic correlation amid 305FLMY and majority of another production trait were positive and significant. Thus, it may be concluded that appropriate estimation of genetic parameters leads to robust selection for performance traits for genetic improvement in Murrah buffalo.