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Ag Briefs

Rare calf born at Conner Prairie following embryo transfer

FISHERS, Ind. (AP) — A rare English Longhorn calf has joined Conner Prairie’s livestock herds following a successful embryo transfer.

The male calf was born last week at the interactive history park in suburban Indianapolis. Its birth comes nine months after a frozen embryo shipped from England was implanted into one of Conner Prairie’s female Shorthorn cows.

Livestock Manager Kevyn Miller calls embryo transfers a relatively new way of saving very old cattle breeds.

The newborn bull is now one of 11 English Longhorns at the museum, which boasts the nation’s second-largest herd of the cattle breed. It will eventually be bred to boost the genetic diversity of the museum’s Longhorn herd.

Conner Prairie’s 850-acre park in Fishers includes a recreated 1836 village.

Farmers report Illinois peaches survive late-season freeze

ALTO PASS, Ill. (AP) — Peach farmers in Illinois say the state’s crop will make it through the fickle spring weather.

The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale reports the delicate fruit survived early-season freezing temperatures.

Wayne Sirles is president of Rendleman Orchards. He says he was surprised to see the peaches make it through the cold which followed an unseasonably warm February in southern Illinois.

Peach buds began sprouting two weeks ago in the sunshine. That was too early. Temperatures that followed fell as low as 17 degrees (-8 Celsius).

Many blooms did succumb. But Sirles says a good crop is still possible with only one in ten blooms struggling through.

Too many peaches per tree reduce the size of each peach.

Nintendo Switch gamers milking cows? An udder failure

WOODSTOCK, Vt. (AP) — Nintendo gamers may be better at virtually milking cows, but they say dairy farmers beat them at the real thing, hands down.

Two Nintendo employees on Wednesday beat two farmers at Vermont’s Billings Farm & Museum during a game of 1-2 Switch, where players perform various minigames, for the new Nintendo console Switch.

The Woodstock farm challenged Nintendo to the competition.

A day before the head-to-head battle, the Nintendo employees got a lesson in actual cow-milking. But on the day of challenge, they agreed they were no competition for the farmers.

Nintendo’s David Young said “Games are fun, but actually working on a farm is hard work.”

China dairy firm says it can’t contact exec after stock dive

HONG KONG (AP) — A Chinese dairy company whose stock plunged last week, wiping billions off its market value, denied rumors Tuesday of forged invoices and misappropriated funds, but also said it can’t contact a key executive.

China Huishan Dairy Holdings Co.’s Hong Kong-listed shares tumbled 85 percent in the space of minutes on Friday morning before they were halted. The reason for the sell-off was unclear.

Huishan’s statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday was its first public response since the stock plunge.

The company denied two rumors that it said were making the rounds. One claimed that an audit turned up a large number of fake bills issued by company members, and another that Chairman Yang Kai had misappropriated 3 billion yuan ($436 million) to invest in real estate in the northeastern rust belt city of Shenyang, where Huishan Dairy is based.

“The company categorically denies having approved the issue of any forged invoices and does not believe there to be any misappropriation,” it said.

It also denied a rumor that one of its controlling shareholders sold off 3.4 billion shares because of a margin call.

The company was the subject of a report in December by U.S.-based short-seller Muddy Waters accusing it of reporting fraudulent profits, but it said then that those accusations were false.

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