Discriminant analysis reveals differences in breed structure in river buffaloes of Maharashtra (India)

Buffaloes are a major milch species of India, and owning a true-to-breed buffalo herd is a reverie for livestock keepers, as it substantiates their incomes. Multivariate discriminate analysis is an efficient methodology to classify different farm animal populations based on canonical discriminant function. The present study was conducted on 392 adult buffaloes using 18 body biometric traits. Except for body height and body length, all the body characters revealed significant differences amongst the four buffalo populations. Unlike cattle, distance between horns and rump width were more discriminating factors, compared to body height, leg length, chest girth, and body length. We report the most suitable discriminate function which can discriminate with maximum between-group variation in four studied populations. Mahalanobis distances were calculated between populations and they ranged from 0.786 to 1.227. Purnathadi has revealed a distinct phenotypic structure, and these buffaloes have a distinct native breeding region comprising Akola, Amravati, and Buldhana districts of Maharashtra state. On the other hand, Elachpuri animals failed to depict physical and biometric discriminations from Nagpuri, Marathwadi, and Purnathadi buffalo populations, and Elachpuri can be considered as a strain of Nagpuri buffalo.