There has been a lot of talk about cloning lately.

This technology has tremendous potential in the world of science; however, there are questions that have been raised about its use in agriculture. That’s not to say that this technology cannot benefit agriculture, but the reasons it is being marketed to bucking bull producers has not been fully explained. I’ve heard the speeches by the cloning companies and I have to admit, they give pretty convincing reasons to clone your animals. I’ve heard skeptics say that, after they heard the pitch, even they thought about loading up a bunch of animals to have them cloned. So this isn’t a matter of misunderstanding or misinterpreting the technology. On the contrary, you realize that there’s a great potential for its use. Unfortunately, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The process of cloning is actually a pretty straightforward procedure from a technical perspective. You take the DNA from one animal, implant it into an embryo and you put it in a recipient female for the embryo to turn into a calf with the same genotype as the DNA donor. The success rate is not very high in cloning, but those marketing the technology tell you that it’s worth it when you get animals of the same genetic makeup of your top animals. There’s also a pretty high economic cost to cloning animals. This is justified, the salesmen claim, because you’re working with proven genetics instead of having to spend the time and money trying to create that “perfect animal” you already have.

But here’s what they’re not telling you: You don’t get the same animal you got from the DNA donor animal. Yes, the genotype is the same but the animal is not. How can this be if the genotype determines the constitution of the animal? Well, there are a few pretty big factors that influence this. First, there is DNA methylation that is responsible for turning on different genes as I will explain. Secondly, there are other environmental factors that contribute to temperament and behavior. Temperament = genotype + environment. I will also cover this momentarily.