The phenomenon of heterosis and experience in crossing different breeds of sheep in Serbia
Authors
Petrović, Milan P.Caro Petrović, Violeta
Ružić-Muslić, Dragana
Maksimović, Nevena

Pavlović, Ivan
Cekić, Bogdan

Cosić, Ivan
article (publishedVersion)
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Crossbreeding serves as a predictable and cost-effective method
to genetically increase lamb body weight by mating two or more breeds of sheep.
The crossing over breed comes to a far greater number of combinations of genes
and thus is more likely to express favorable allele carriers of economically
important traits. The phenomenon of heterosis has used since the beginning of the
last century. However, its genetic basis has remained unclear. From the very
beginning of the knowledge of heterosis to the present day, there are several
theories, but neither theory able to answer all questions that arise regarding the
apparent strength of the F1 generation offspring. Not assert anything about the
genetic or molecular phenomenon that causes heterosis. It has been increasingly
experimentally confirmed that heterosis is the result of highly complex interactions
within the genome as well as between the genome and the environment. In Serbia,
some activity of domestic researchers regar...ding crossbreeding of sheep after the
Second World War has been recorded up to date. It found out that crosses have a
higher body weight than the maternal base in the F1 generation. In other words,
they had better fattening capacity than purebreds. However, the results are not
always in line with expectations due to the influence of various known and
unknown factors.This review paper aims to draw attention to the phenomenon of
heterosis through experience in its application in Serbia, in the hope that this
biological phenomenon would clarify in the near future by applying modern
scientific understandings and technologies.