Effect of boar breed and chosen crossing variants on the development of basic traits of boar semen

Summary. The main aim of the survey was to determine the influence of selected breeds and crossbreed variants on the basic semen traits in the station boars. The studies comparised 25 787 ejaculates taken by the manual method from 205 the station boars: 26 PWL (wbp) boars (3353 ejaculates), 124 PL (pbz) boars (14711 ejaculates), 16 crossbreds hampshire × pietrain (2081 ejaculates), 16 crossbreds duroc x pietrain (2313 ejaculates), 9 crossbreds pietrain × duroc (1082 ejaculates), and 14 pietrain boars (2247 ejaculates) used at the Sow Insemination Station in Kraśnik and Bialka near Radzyn Podlaski. A significant effect of breed and crossbreed structure of the crossbred boars was shown on most analysed semen traits. In the purebred boars group the highest semen volume was found for PWL boars (226 ml). Significantly the smallest volume was found for PL ejaculates (221 ml) and pietrain ejaculates (216.8 ml). In the crossbred boars the highest semen volume was for hampshire × pietrain boars (261.8 ml), the smallest semen volume had duroc × pietrain boars (182.7 ml). The studies confirmed the negative correlation between semen volume and the concentration of spermatozoa. A highly significant difference was revealed in the number of alive spermatozoa in ejaculates of different crossbreds of boars group.