Towards a permanent solution for controlling cattle ticks

Abstract

Acaricides are essential in the short-term but do not offer a permanent solution to tick control. This situation will not change without a change of approach. A vaccine against Boophilus microplus confers partial long-term control but has little immediate effect on tick burdens. The effectiveness of acaricides and vaccination is greatest for breeds of high tick resistance. High host resistance is the key to effective long-term tick control with total resistance the ultimate aim. While improvements to acaricides and vaccines are continuously pursued, improvements to the most important single factor controlling ticks, host resistance, have been neglected. Resistance is as heritable as milk yield or growth and in tropical breeds can be increased to very high levels by selection. Despite this there are no current examples of sustained selection for tick resistance. Temperate breeds have low resistance but because of high production potentials are favoured for crossbreeding with tropical breeds. This perpetuates the need for reliance on acaricides. Selection to increase polygenic resistance of temperate breeds is impractical. However, a quantum increase can be achieved by introgressing major resistance genes. Such a gene occurs in the Belmont Adaptaur and in suitable genetic backgrounds confers 100% resistance. Total resistance is achievable and provides a permanent solution to ticks.