The Florida Cattle Enhancement Board provides critical funding to enhance Brahman genetics through research at the University of Florida and we caught up with Dr. Mario Binelli to learn more.
Binelli said, “I could not be more grateful, Dale. It’s amazing. I’ll tell you, it’s about 50% of all the research funding that I get. It’s an extremely generous and very open funding program. So I, again, I was saying from the beginning, I do very applied, but I also do very basic. And I have been funded in very basic projects, like the, what is the epigenomic control of fertility in the uterine cells from fertile versus less fertile cattle. They funded me for that. But they also fund me to get this Brahman calves produced by IVF. So it’s amazing. They have a vision of funding research that is short term, but that is also long term.”
“I was also funded by, on projects to look for blood markers for early puberty, both in heifers and in bulls. So, again, it has a very practical end point, but it is highly basic in terms of the technologies that we use to detect those markers. So it’s, I couldn’t be more grateful. So I dream something that I think will be relevant for the industry. We package that into a grant that is available for us every year. And except for the year of the pandemic, we are funded every year. So this is, again, and I highlighted that in the beginning of our podcast, it’s really unique for this state. And it is a very unique opportunity. And again, people that are not in Florida, they are really jealous that we are able to get that kind of funding,” said Binelli.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.