Colt Knight: 00:15
Don’t fall asleep.
Jessica Motta: 00:16
I won’t. It’s very complicated, though. I could easily fall asleep. Especially after, like, this crazy week, I could begin to, like, doze easily. That was.
Colt Knight: 00:28
Alright. Well, welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I am your host, Dr. Colt Knight, associate extension professor and state livestock specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. And today, I have a special guest. I am joined by Dr. Jessica Motta.
Colt Knight: 00:44
Jessica.
Jessica Motta: 00:44
Hello.
Colt Knight: 00:45
It’s great to have you with us. Dr. Motta is a new faculty member with the School of Food and Agriculture. Mhmm. She is a reproductive physiologist as well as a veterinarian.
Jessica Motta: 00:59
Yeah. Back in Brazil, I’m a veterinarian. Yeah. Here, I’m not one yet.
Colt Knight: 01:05
And then you also teach some classes too. Right?
Jessica Motta: 01:07
Yeah. I’m teaching two courses right now.
Colt Knight: 01:10
Excellent. So you you kind of alluded to the fact that you’re from Brazil.
Jessica Motta: 01:14
Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 01:15
So I’ve got a couple questions for you about that.
Jessica Motta: 01:18
Okay.
Colt Knight: 01:18
Yeah. So one, what was it like growing up in Brazil? Were you involved in agriculture there?
Jessica Motta: 01:24
A little bit. Like, my grandpa, he had, like, two small farms. One of it is more for coffee bean production, and the other one had some cattle. But it was just for vacation for me because he was living in another state than mine. So, I was always going there for, in our case, for our summer vacation, which is in December.
Jessica Motta: 01:48
So, yeah, that was like, how close I was to, like, any animal and agriculture side when I was growing up.
Colt Knight: 01:56
So how did you go from that to studying reproductive physiology and becoming a veterinarian?
Jessica Motta: 02:02
That’s yeah. That’s a really good question because it was a lot. When I was a kid, I always knew I wanted to be a vet. Like, my dad trying to change that for me because in Brazil, being a vet, it’s not a big deal like it is here.
Jessica Motta: 02:15
Like, you don’t make a lot of money as a vet in Brazil. But I always loved animals in general, like dogs, cats, all the animals that you can imagine. Then when I went to vet school, I was like, well, I’m gonna be one that’s like a small animal vet. Because that’s what you have the option basically to do in Brazil or even here. That’s the most common way to go. But as soon as I started my vet school, in my first week, I started doing an internship with a professor with reproduction in large animals. And I just loved it.
Jessica Motta: 02:50
Like, it was the unique thing that I learned that was, like, amazing. So then in the same year, I met a vet that works with large animals in Brazil. So, from that year on, I was always spending my summer vacations with him when we were working in farms. Because, as I mentioned, in Brazil, the summer is in December.
Jessica Motta: 03:10
So, that’s when we have our beef cattle reproduction happening. So, I was always spending my new year and Christmas working with reproduction since my very first year in vet school. And I just loved to learn all the hormones and how to handle. And most importantly, I feel like what I fell in love with at first was palpation and ultrasound. Because visually seeing the pregnancy, visually seeing the ovaries and all the structures just, like, was amazing for me at the time.
Jessica Motta: 03:39
And I was like 19, 18 years old at the time. That’s how I ended up, like, falling in love with reproduction.
Colt Knight: 03:47
Which we should probably clarify that. So in the United States, students graduate high school and then they go get a four year undergraduate degree, usually an animal science or pre-veterinary science or a biology degree. And then they can apply to vet school, which is another four years of school. It’s a postgraduate degree. And then towards the end of that, you actually go do an internship where you you have to help along in a vet clinic or a vet practice for about a year.
Colt Knight: 04:18
But in Brazil, that’s different. Right? You can go straight from
Jessica Motta: 04:21
High school.
Colt Knight: 04:22
High school Yeah. Into a a veterinary degree.
Jessica Motta: 04:24
Yeah. It’s a very complicated process, though, because we need to you don’t have to prepare any package to get into vet school, but you need to go through an exam. So, for all universities in Brazil to study, you need to do an exam to try to get into university, especially if it’s a public university. And different from here, public universities are for free in Brazil, so we don’t pay to study anything. But to get into vet school, it’s really hard because you need to do really, really well on those exams.
Jessica Motta: 04:55
So, then you start vet school right after your high school, if you are lucky enough. If not, you need to do something like you keep studying one more year, you pay for studying one more year, and then you can apply again until you can get into a vet school. Then once you are in vet school, it’s usually five years. And in my case, it was from 7:30 AM up to 6 PM every single day. And you still need to do internship as well at the end.
Jessica Motta: 05:23
So, it’s a little bit different from the process in here. And the best part is, like, the price, like you don’t pay for anything if you go for a public university. And that’s what I did. And actually, you can apply for some scholarships to study abroad. So, that’s what I did in my vet school.
Jessica Motta: 05:41
So, when I was in vet school, I had a scholarship or fellowship to come to the US for the first time. So, I came here in 2015. Yes. 2015. And I spent a year and a half at University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Jessica Motta: 05:58
And our government was paying for everything for me at the time. And it was and that’s when that was when, like, I changed my mind about what I was planning to do with my future. Because at the time, I was, like, two years from finishing my vet school and I wanted to go back to Brazil and work as a practitioner, like, basically go to the farm, perform
Colt Knight: 06:22
Mhmm.
Jessica Motta: 06:22
Protocols, preg checks, and all of those things. But when I came here and I started to work with Milo Wiltbank, I don’t know if you know him, but, like, he’s the one who created the OvSynch, for example
Colt Knight: 06:33
Yep.
Jessica Motta: 06:33
With his grad student at the time in 1995. So I started learning a lot about, like, research, about all the physiology and all the stuff that I still need to learn. And I felt like I need to go deeper on those knowledge before I even think about going to work. And as I kept working in his lab, I figured out that I wanted to be a professor and researcher. So, that was in 2015.
Jessica Motta: 07:03
And I was like, well, in ten years from now, I need to be a professor here in the US. That was my decision at the time, which was insane, like, to go back to Brazil and tell that to my parents and my friends. They were like, you are crazy. Forget about it. It won’t work. It’s just like, it’s not a normal path for
Colt Knight: 07:19
It took me several years before I informed my parents that I wasn’t gonna be a veterinarian. Because they sent me to school thinking that I was gonna become a veterinarian.
Jessica Motta: 07:30
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 07:30
And I worked in a vet clinic as a vet tech when I was in high school.
Jessica Motta: 07:35
Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 07:36
And I really didn’t like it. And, you know, I had really good grades and I liked animals. So everyone just assumed Mhmm. That I was gonna be a veterinarian. That was just that was the only option people told me.
Colt Knight: 07:47
They were like, oh, you’re just gonna go to school and be a vet. So they sent me to school to be a And I was like, I really don’t wanna be a vet. But then I was exposed to the animal science program.
Jessica Motta: 07:56
Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 07:57
And I had this this one great professor and I was like, oh, that’s what I wanna do. Because they get to do all the cool stuff. You know, they get to do like surgeries on research animals and they get to to go out and interact with the animals on a day to day basis and solve problems. And they can work outside when it’s nice and then they can come into the office if it’s Yeah. If it’s nasty outside.
Jessica Motta: 08:19
That’s what I feel about, like, our students here. I always tell them they have other options. I know everyone starts animal science, particularly, like, thinking, like, I wanna go to vet school, but they need to open their minds and see there are other options there because we can’t bring all the animal science students to vet school. That’s physically impossible.
Colt Knight: 08:37
No. It’s like 80% of our freshman animal science class wanna become veterinarians. Yeah. And realistically, maybe around ten percent of those will be accepted into vet school.
Jessica Motta: 08:50
Yeah. So I always tell them, like, have a a plan B that you can work on. So, like, for my course, I always bring people who like to present what they are doing. And I have Dave coming as well and the other professor And
Colt Knight: 09:08
Dr. Marcinkowski.
Jessica Motta: 09:09
Yeah. I don’t say his last name. It’s Dave for me. It’s impossible. It’s too much for my English.
Jessica Motta: 09:15
But anyway, so he comes to class and he speaks for like an hour and a half just showing, like, all these students that he had and what they are doing nowadays. And they can literally see, like, most of them are not vets and they are doing really, really well. So they end up, like, learning other options, you know?
Colt Knight: 09:32
Yeah. That’s an amazing presentation he’s got because some of our pre-vet students have gone on to become OBGYNs, work for feed companies.
Jessica Motta: 09:42
There’s, like, so, like, so much to So do out
Colt Knight: 09:44
much that they can do. One person is is in charge of the Upward Bound program. A lot of the students convert to nursing.
Jessica Motta: 09:52
Look at that.
Colt Knight: 09:53
Like the ones that wanna work in the veterinary field and then they didn’t get into vet school or they didn’t wanna go on to be in vet school and they spend a little time as a vet tech and then they convert over to nursing. Mhmm. And so and then they end up being, like, really, really good nurses with all their their livestock experience makes them
Jessica Motta: 10:10
Yeah. I always tell them, like, in my in my case, for example, I also started my vet school thinking, oh, I’m gonna do surgeries, clinics in small animals. That’s what everyone does. Right? Mhmm.
Jessica Motta: 10:21
But then as I was, like, studying and learning, I saw, like, there’s so much more that I can do in my case as a vet in Brazil. And that’s how I ended up where I am right, like, right now. I don’t have to be a vet to do what I do. And, actually, I don’t consider myself a vet anymore. Like, if you ask me to do a surgery, I’m sorry.
Jessica Motta: 10:39
I can’t. But if you ask me, like, to do any type of reproductive work, I just love what I do. Like, I can do it all. Like, I love it.
Colt Knight: 10:47
I got to do a lot of surgeries in graduate school for my research projects. Really? And I’m not sure they still let students do that.
Jessica Motta: 10:55
Don’t believe so.
Colt Knight: 10:57
When I was in school, like, research professors did all their own surgeries. They didn’t have to have a veterinarian to do those. We couldn’t charge for it. You know, you couldn’t do it for the general public, but for our research animals, we did all of our own surgical work. We sewed in all of our own cannulas, fistulas, biopsies, necropsies, everything.
Colt Knight: 11:15
I did all those.
Jessica Motta: 11:16
Yeah. I don’t think nowadays you can do that because you need to go through IACUC, and you they are really restricted to several things. So usually you need at least to have a vet with you. So you need to have a vet somehow.
Colt Knight: 11:29
I taught a lot of veterinarians how to remove the brain out of a cow.
Jessica Motta: 11:32
Okay. Definitely.
Colt Knight: 11:34
I have really good technique for that. I spent I spent two summers in a row working on a disease that affected the the brain of cattle. And we had to remove the brain so we could we could dissect it and get slides and stuff. Yeah. I could do it in, like, just a couple minutes.
Jessica Motta: 11:50
Well, just because once you start doing the same thing over and over, you just become a pro on that. Like ultrasound scanning for me is just the easiest thing in the world and I love doing it, but I know I cannot do that in here, like as a vet. I cannot, like, go and preg check for any farm, but I know I can do that, like, much better than several
Colt Knight: 12:10
Ultrasound technicians will make it look easy.
Jessica Motta: 12:12
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 12:13
I mean, when you watch someone do it, it’s just like, oh, they’re just holding this probe up against the animal and they see this perfect picture. If if I gave you an ultrasound machine and you’ve never done it before, you wouldn’t see anything. It would just look like the white noise on a TV screen.
Colt Knight: 12:28
I mean, there’s a lot of skill to that.
Jessica Motta: 12:31
Yeah. I’m teaching that to grad students, master students how to scan. It’s really, I always forget how hard it is for someone that is learning and it’s really interesting. Like, they can learn, everyone can learn it. It’s just a matter of practicing.
Jessica Motta: 12:43
Anyways.
Colt Knight: 12:44
Yeah, there’s the science behind it and then there’s the technique behind it. And then beyond that, there’s like a feel to it. And getting that feel is is a lot of repetition. It takes a
Jessica Motta: 12:56
lot of practice. Yeah. I have been practicing for over, like, I don’t know, fifteen years now. So, yeah, it’s it’s a lot.
Colt Knight: 13:03
So that’s how you got into your career path from Brazil. And I think that was your gateway to the United States. What made you decide to stay in the States instead of going back to Brazil?
Jessica Motta: 13:13
It was the research. Like when I was doing my research, still in vet school, but here in the US, I saw, like, how easier it was for you to have access to some features that back in Brazil, it’s harder to do. And I really wanted to have this research area, like, I could work on and be a researcher. Back in Brazil, you can still do it, but it’s not as easy as here, I would say. Because, like, I went back to Brazil at the time after I was done my year and a half here, then I went back to Brazil and I needed to finish my vet school and get my internship in Brazil.
Jessica Motta: 13:48
So then I worked with Pietro Baruselli. I don’t know if anyone is gonna know him, but he’s really, really famous in Brazil. He’s internationally known. So I worked with him for one year and also for reproduction. And once I got my vet degree, I still had to stay in Brazil for at least two years because of visa issues.
Jessica Motta: 14:08
That’s how it works for international students. So I was like, I’m gonna get my master’s back in Brazil. And then I worked with Roberto Sartori in Brazil. He’s also like amazing in reproduction. So, we did a lot of physiology, hormonal studies.
Jessica Motta: 14:24
And at the time, we collected all these blood samples from my cows, like a lot of blood samples. I cannot even tell how many samples I had. But in Brazil, it’s really hard for us to do some assays, like some hormonal assays. So the easiest way for me to do was to put everything in a cooler with dry ice. And I can’t tell how many pounds I had on that cooler, but it was much more than a checked bag for sure.
Jessica Motta: 14:48
And I literally just flew to the US again, again to Wisconsin, where I was running all of my assays for, like, six months. So I stayed there, working there, and also Texas A and M with Ky Pohler to run some of my estradiol as well.
Colt Knight: 15:02
I know him.
Jessica Motta: 15:03
Yeah. So we ended up working together for that project. So then that’s how I connected even more with the US. But when I was during that period in here, when I was in vet school at Wisconsin, one of Milo’s students at the time, he was in his PhD, which was Dr. Alvaro Garcia Guerra. I worked with him a lot as an intern in there.
Jessica Motta: 15:27
So, he was about to finish his PhD when I came back to Brazil. And he said, like, well, if I become a professor here in the US, you should come and do some research with me. Like, well, I’m down. So I went back to Brazil and doing, like, my master’s down there. I already knew that I wanted to work with this guy, Alvaro Garcia Guerra, and he got a position at at The Ohio State University.
Jessica Motta: 15:51
So then we decided to, like, he invited me to do my PhD with him. And then as soon as I was done with my master’s in 2019, I moved to the US in 2020 to start my PhD with him as well. So it was everything, like, planned ahead of time, basically. So, I already knew my path. So, that’s where I ended up, like, doing my PhD at The Ohio State University with Alvaro Garcia Guerra.
Jessica Motta: 16:17
And that’s where I was since, like, up to, like, last year before I started here.
Colt Knight: 16:21
And then how did you know Dr. Romero, our forage dairy nutritionist?
Jessica Motta: 16:27
Dr. Romero, how did I know him? I think
Colt Knight: 16:30
Because I remember I was on Jessica’s hiring committee. Mhmm. And I remember Juan specifically saying, hey. We need to reach out to Jess and ask her to apply for this position.
Jessica Motta: 16:40
I can’t remember. Maybe it was through another professor. Maybe it was through Marília Chiavegato that also works in his area. I can’t remember because I also knew Jaime as well because of Marília. And that’s how I actually had a meeting with Jaime before my interview to understand how the system works here, because once you go to the interview, you wanna know the place pretty well to ask the right questions and give the right shots.
Jessica Motta: 17:09
So, then I kind of knew a lot about here because of Jaime. So, yeah, maybe it was because of Marília. I can’t really tell. I always do a lot of research with dairy cattle, so maybe that’s how he knew me as well. Maybe.
Jessica Motta: 17:25
Yeah. I can’t really tell.
Colt Knight: 17:26
We’ll have to ask Juan next time we see him.
Jessica Motta: 17:28
Yeah. We gotta ask him.
Colt Knight: 17:30
I mean, but for folks that that aren’t aware of the the hiring process for a research professor, that is a grueling interview. You know, when you go to most job interviews, you go and you sit down for an interview for an hour or so and answer some questions and that’s it. On a PhD interview, you get invited to campus.
Jessica Motta: 17:54
Well, we have an online interview first.
Colt Knight: 17:55
Well, that’s happened since the pandemic.
Jessica Motta: 17:58
Yeah. In my case,
Colt Knight: 17:58
I had
Jessica Motta: 17:59
the online interview Yeah.
Colt Knight: 18:00
So first, there might be forty, fifty candidates and we have to screen those down to the top 10 or 15.
Jessica Motta: 18:07
And you have a lot of documents that you need to send for a lot of letters.
Colt Knight: 18:11
All your college transcripts, your philosophies on teaching, research.
Jessica Motta: 18:15
Research, extension, everything.
Colt Knight: 18:18
Yeah. And then you have to generate like five or 10 letters of recommendation from professionals in the industry to send along with that. So just to get the initial interview is really difficult. And then once you get the initial interview, you go through that pre-screening process of like a digital online interview. And then they’ll pick like the top three, maybe four candidates.
Jessica Motta: 18:39
My case was four.
Colt Knight: 18:40
And then you fly to the university for a usually a three day interview. So you tour campus and they go through and they introduce you to everyone that’s pertinent to your field on campus. And then they’ll usually just stick you in their office for fifteen, twenty minutes. Mhmm. And then so it’s like their own interviews.
Colt Knight: 19:00
So you end up over the course of three days, you’ve got like 40 interviews that you’ve done and you’re completely mentally exhausted. Yeah. And on top of that, you have to give a research presentation to to everybody. Yeah. And a teaching presentation.
Jessica Motta: 19:14
Presentation. I remember like yesterday, my like my presentations. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 19:19
And and then on top of that, three or four people will take you to lunch, dinner, breakfast, which is also an interview because
Jessica Motta: 19:28
They are evaluating you from the time that you land to the time that you leave.
Colt Knight: 19:34
Yeah. I mean, we can look at your transcripts and see you have the education. Yeah. But we we need to evaluate whether someone’s gonna be a good teacher, a good researcher. And the most important part, are they gonna fit in?
Colt Knight: 19:44
Because, you know, we’re gonna be colleagues for a long time and we don’t wanna hire a jerk or someone that we don’t wanna get along with for a while.
Jessica Motta: 19:55
Yeah. Because usually we stay in the place for like thirty, thirty five years.
Colt Knight: 19:58
Yeah. These jobs are excellent. Once you get them, people people stay usually stay in these jobs. You don’t you don’t usually leave these type of jobs. You might go to a different university or something, but you usually stay in this this career track because there’s such a rewarding job.
Colt Knight: 20:12
But yeah, those interviews are are something else.
Jessica Motta: 20:15
Yeah. And just a fun fact, like, when I got here for my PhD at Ohio State, one of my colleagues, like, was doing his master’s at the time. He was like, oh, you should go to Maine and visit there because I think he spent part of his summer here or whatever. So I was like, Maine is beautiful. Maine is amazing.
Jessica Motta: 20:32
That was in 2020, and I never thought about it. I was like, well, I wanna go there. But as a grad student, you have you are short in money and short in time, so I never got a chance of traveling here. And when I applied for this position, he was like, oh, man. You gotta get that position because it’s in Maine.
Jessica Motta: 20:47
And here I am now.
Colt Knight: 20:50
Well, now that you’re here, I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. It’s like, classes are you teaching and what kind of research are you doing?
Jessica Motta: 21:00
Yeah. So, of course, I’m teaching the repro physiology, which I couldn’t be more perfect than what I always dream about. So, that I’m actually teaching for the first time this semester, and it’s been really, really interesting. My students have an exam next Tuesday, and they are freaking out already. And it’s so cute to see, like, how they are they wanna learn more and more, but they also, like it’s it’s really cool to be on the other side right now, you know?
Jessica Motta: 21:25
But anyways, the students here are great. So, I’m teaching repro physiology, which is amazing. And the dairy technology or dairy management, now called here the UMaine Cows, which is like a program that Dr. Dave started a long time ago. I’m also teaching that course.
Colt Knight: 21:41
And that’s like a dairy production class. Yeah. But it also has a hands on component.
Jessica Motta: 21:45
Yeah. The students will have
Colt Knight: 21:46
to go to the farm and milk cows. Mhmm. So many so much of the semester.
Jessica Motta: 21:50
Yeah. Now with the robot, they don’t need to milk cows anymore. I believe everyone knows that we have a robot right now. Robot now.
Jessica Motta: 21:56
Yeah. Which is really, really good. So they are spoiled. They don’t need to milk cows anymore. But they do need to do, like, several chores at the farm and they need to, like, we need to teach them, like, more hands on activity.
Jessica Motta: 22:06
So that’s why I’m teaching, like, these both courses. And then for this UMaine Cows, you actually have the lecture part of it. That’s gonna be in the spring. So
Colt Knight: 22:14
yeah. And that course is actually one of the reasons that our students get accepted into vet school at a higher rate than average. Yeah. It’s because of all that hands on experience. Vet schools kinda went through a wonky period.
Colt Knight: 22:29
So the generation before me, it would have been easy to get into vet school because not that many folks applied. So and and then back then, a lot of the state schools, if you were in-state, you got free tuition too. So it was you had to do the work once you got to vet school, but it was not that difficult to get into vet school.
Jessica Motta: 22:48
Mhmm.
Colt Knight: 22:48
And then it got more competitive
Jessica Motta: 22:50
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 22:51
Over time. And then the vet schools were getting funding based on their attrition rates. So how many students stayed in vet school. And so we started picking vets that were good students, but not necessarily good practicing veterinarians. And so the industry started kicking back on that.
Colt Knight: 23:13
Mhmm. And so now you have to be a good student. Plus, they’re really looking for that real world experience.
Jessica Motta: 23:19
Yeah. Our students are always doing internships. They are really, really busy. And, yeah, it’s fantastic to see how dedicated they are. Like, the ones that wanna go to vet school, they dedicate themselves for the vet school.
Jessica Motta: 23:30
And the ones that don’t want to go to vet school, they keep working on something else that they wanna do. Like, it’s amazing to see how dedicated they are. It’s beautiful. But you also asked about the research. So on the research side of it, so during my PhD, I have done a lot of in vitro embryo production studies, mostly focused on the donor, so the animal that is donating their gametes, like the oocytes.
Jessica Motta: 23:55
And that’s what I wanna keep working on here. But now instead of the in vitro, I wanna move into the in vivo. So when you produce embryos out of cows, you can do in vitro, which basically you collect the oocytes, bring to the lab and produce the embryos in the lab and you transfer these embryos. And the in vivo is when you do everything at the cow level. So you produce all the embryos inside the cow and then you flush these embryos and transfer.
Jessica Motta: 24:24
Right? The in vitro technicians, they wanna do everything in the lab. It’s growing a lot in the US, so it’s actually the primary way to produce embryos nowadays. But we still have a lot of in vivo going on. Especially, I realized that here in Maine it’s very very common for them to do in vivo because we don’t have many in vitro labs, and it’s just like everything can be done at the farm.
Colt Knight: 24:45
Mhmm.
Jessica Motta: 24:45
So it’s really, really useful as well. So I wanna move, like, towards that area for now, at least for, like, a couple years from now. And what I’m focused on, like, I’m trying I’m gonna try to be very, very basic here, like, very simple. So to produce embryos, you can preselect the donors that you are collecting. Usually, you select based on genetics, the ones that you wanna have, like the milk production.
Jessica Motta: 25:12
I don’t know, whatever, you name it, the traits that you want from that. But for embryo production itself, you can select them based on their embryo production capability. So, you have animals that are gonna you know they’re gonna produce more embryos than others. And that’s because they have more or less follicles in their ovaries, which are the ones that are hosting the eggs, the oocytes. So, of course, animals that have more follicles, they’re gonna produce more embryos.
Jessica Motta: 25:40
And animals with less follicles, they’re gonna produce less embryos. That’s expected. And with a single blood sample, I can collect anytime, collect a blood sample from an animal and I can predict if they’re gonna be a high or a low embryo producer. So, when you, on your end, select your animals, you are selecting for other things than embryo production. You don’t care if they produce more or less, right?
Jessica Motta: 26:03
You are still using the ones that produce less. So during my PhD, my goal was basically trying to change some hormonal aspects during the protocol to try to increase this embryo production of low embryo producers and high embryo producers. Right? Simple change. Because to do embryo production, usually you need to use a hormone that is the FSH to cause like a super stimulation, we say.
Jessica Motta: 26:27
So, we’re trying to change the dose of that hormone, how many injections we were doing for that hormone. And anyways, we’re doing a lot of things about FSH. So, now I wanna test this also for in vivo embryo production because we have shown, like, the dose, for example, can affect the embryo production. And that’s different from low and high embryo producer animals. So on
Colt Knight: 26:51
average, how many embryos can you get out of one flushing of a cow generally?
Jessica Motta: 26:56
Oh, that’s very, very variable. That’s the problem. You can get animals that produce nothing or one and animals that can produce six, eight, nine viable embryos. And that’s where these high and low embryo producers come into the place. So basically, animals with the high end, you can basically produce like eight
Colt Knight: 27:16
or
Jessica Motta: 27:16
So, my goal for my research right now is trying to increase the production for these high ones, but also to increase the production of the low ones. So I’m basically trying to find farms here in Maine to run this project. So I wanna get Holstein heifers, particularly, to make my life a little bit easier, but heifers, and then I will preselect them to see, like, those are the high group and those are the low group, just based on a blood sample. And then I will do several tests on FSH, dose, number of injections and everything. Because we have seen differences for in vitro production.
Jessica Motta: 27:56
And now I wanna go into in vivo embryo production. So if any farmer there that is interested to work with us, please just contact
Colt Knight: 28:05
Reach out. Yeah.
Jessica Motta: 28:05
Yeah. Reach out.
Colt Knight: 28:05
It is really interesting because what? For the last half a century or so Mhmm. Almost all of our genetic progress has been on the bull side. Because one top ranked bull can produce many, many offspring. Exactly.
Colt Knight: 28:17
But a cow can only produce one a year, maybe two if she has twins. Right? So we really focused heavily on
Jessica Motta: 28:24
But one a year if it’s good because Yeah.
Colt Knight: 28:26
One a year is good. Right? So we’ve really focused heavily on the male side, but with this in vitro and in vivo technology, we can improve more on the cow side as
Jessica Motta: 28:36
well. Exactly.
Colt Knight: 28:38
And we can combine the two. And we’re combining the two.
Jessica Motta: 28:41
And that’s what we are doing nowadays because with in vitro, you can aspirate a heifer that is like two months old if you wanted to. But I know that’s not realistic for most farms in here or small areas. So that’s why I wanna bring back a little bit of the in
Colt Knight: 28:59
vivo And is that for something that you can do every time they cycle or?
Jessica Motta: 29:02
The in vivo, usually you wait, I would say, like, a month between flushings. Yeah. You wanna wait a little bit.
Colt Knight: 29:09
So if you’ve got one super cow or one super heifer Mhmm. You could technically flush her about once a month.
Jessica Motta: 29:15
Yeah. You can do that.
Colt Knight: 29:16
And get up to eight embryos?
Jessica Motta: 29:18
Well, yeah. I will say
Colt Knight: 29:20
Up to?
Jessica Motta: 29:21
Yeah. It varies. Like, you can have animals produce much more than that. That’s the point. Like, it depends on the breed, on their number of follicles.
Jessica Motta: 29:29
Anyways, like their genetics has a lot of factors involved on that. But yeah, you can produce a lot. Or if you have a low embryo producer, you can produce much less. But if she’s important, getting two embryos out of her is better than just getting one single offspring, for example. But yeah, usually you can do once a month.
Jessica Motta: 29:50
For the in vivo, they need to be pubertal. So, it has to be after eight, nine, ten months old before. For the in vitro, you can just keep aspirating them since they are really young. And for in vitro, you can do aspiration every, like, week or every two weeks as well. Like, it’s you can do a lot.
Jessica Motta: 30:09
Wow. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 30:11
But there’s only a a limited number of embryos within a cow. Right? Or oocytes within a cow or
Jessica Motta: 30:17
Oh, yeah.
Colt Knight: 30:17
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what that number is.
Jessica Motta: 30:19
Oh, it varies as well. That’s what I’m saying. Like, we have animals that are gonna be constantly high follicle and animals that are constantly low follicle.
Colt Knight: 30:27
Yes. But it’s like a gumball machine. You can Yeah. You can keep taking them out until it’s empty.
Jessica Motta: 30:31
Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Well, we won’t empty them. But yeah.
Jessica Motta: 30:35
Yeah. It won’t empty them. But yeah. Exactly.
Colt Knight: 30:38
I’ve not done much work with in vitro and in vivo. We we did a little bit with beef cattle when I was a PhD student. Mhmm. But I never I was always either a genetics or nutrition Mhmm. Graduate student.
Colt Knight: 30:51
So I didn’t do a whole lot of reproductive research other than just gathering reproductive data. I was never really involved with the synchronization protocols or
Jessica Motta: 31:01
the Yeah. That’s what I’m doing, like, for my past fifteen years. All the protocols, all the hormones. Yeah. That’s what I’ve been
Colt Knight: 31:07
I mean, I did a lot of artificial insemination just as a technician. Before I got really bad hand tremors, I was pretty good at it. But once my hand tremors got bad, now I I do, like, two or three cows and my hands just shake and go numb and I can’t even feel what I’m doing. So I’m I’m kind of spent after just a few now. But but speaking of that, Jessica hired on to the University of Maine about the same time that Dr. Pereira and I received a artificial insemination grant to teach AI to cattle and swine producers in Maine.
Colt Knight: 31:41
And Jessica’s been a wealth of of knowledge for that program, and she’s even helped us. Yeah. Most of the most of the classes we’ve had with producers. So we’re gonna keep asking her to help us.
Jessica Motta: 31:53
Be there. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 31:54
And I am even and I’m gonna ask her right now live on the air on December 6, the Maine Cattlemen’s College. We’re gonna have a reproduction-themed Cattlemen’s College, and I was hoping she could come down and speak for that too.
Jessica Motta: 32:09
If it’s not a Tuesday or Thursday.
Colt Knight: 32:11
It’s a Saturday.
Jessica Motta: 32:12
Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I can definitely do it. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 32:14
Yeah. And I’ll cook. So Perfect.
Jessica Motta: 32:16
Yeah. Your payment. Yeah. Perfect. That is a perfect payment.
Colt Knight: 32:21
So now that you’ve you’ve been in Maine for just a little while Yeah. You’ve undergone some life changes. You’re adapting to the new job. What’s your favorite thing so far about living here in Maine?
Jessica Motta: 32:32
Acadia.
Colt Knight: 32:33
Acadia.
Jessica Motta: 32:34
I love Acadia.
Colt Knight: 32:34
That was quick.
Jessica Motta: 32:35
I love Acadia. I have been there during the summer, like, three times already, and I wanna go again now that the leaves are changing.
Colt Knight: 32:41
You better hurry. Yeah. At this time of year when they get pretty like this, they’re only pretty usually for about a week or so, and then the wind’s gonna blow real strong and then it just blows them all away.
Jessica Motta: 32:49
So Yeah. I wanna go
Colt Knight: 32:50
Don’t dawdle.
Jessica Motta: 32:51
To they mentioned about Baxter.
Colt Knight: 32:54
Yeah. Baxter.
Jessica Motta: 32:54
Yeah. I wanna go there. I’ve never been there. But yeah. What
Colt Knight: 32:57
else Certain times of the year, it it gets pretty busy and it’s hard to get into to Baxter. So you wanna look into
Jessica Motta: 33:03
Interesting. Yeah. I’ll check it
Colt Knight: 33:04
I don’t know about this time of year, but I think in the summer, it can be difficult to to get in
Jessica Motta: 33:07
Great to know. But, yeah, like, Maine is just beautiful. I I was really so I came from Columbus, which was the capital of Ohio, and it was really overwhelming. Like, people, they don’t say good morning. They don’t even look at you.
Jessica Motta: 33:21
And once you get here, Orono, which is really hard for me to pronounce, but anyways, when you get here, people are so welcoming. Doesn’t matter what you are doing, they wanna help you. And that was amazing. I was like, at first, I was kind of in shock because I wasn’t expecting that. But anything, like any when I got here, I was like, wow, man. I feel that this is a completely, like, different country from the entire US.
Jessica Motta: 33:47
That’s how I see, like, Maine right now.
Colt Knight: 33:49
I grew up in West Virginia, which is across the
Jessica Motta: 33:50
river from Ohio. I’ve been there a couple of times. And and
Colt Knight: 33:54
we always had the same issue with Ohioans. So, like, in West Virginia, everyone waves at everyone. Mhmm. If you’re in the grocery store and you pass a stranger, you, like, stop your buggy and let them go in front of you. You always say, hi.
Colt Knight: 34:06
How are you? Or some kind of greeting. But those Ohioans, man,
Jessica Motta: 34:10
they And that’s how it was in my city in Brazil because I’m from Sao Paulo State, but not the Sao Paulo City. So my city was a small town in Sao Paulo, and everyone knows everyone. Like, we always say, like, good morning, good afternoon. I always talk to everyone.
Colt Knight: 34:26
Mhmm.
Jessica Motta: 34:26
If you need help, someone’s gonna be there and helping you. It’s not like Sao Paulo City, which was Sao Paulo City and Columbus were they were very similar. And I lived for in Sao Paulo for about a year when I was working with Pietro Baruselli, and I hated Sao Paulo. Like, I I’ll never be there again, like, to live. But I was always working at the farm, so I never needed to stay in Sao Paulo at the time.
Jessica Motta: 34:46
So I could always go to farms.
Colt Knight: 34:48
I’m that way about Las Cruces, New Mexico where I did my postdoc. I imagine. They tried to get me to stay on as a beef specialist. I was like, nope.
Jessica Motta: 34:55
Yeah. So I’m I wanna live here. Yeah. About Maine, like, that’s the best part so far. And everywhere when I went here in Maine, even Portland, that’s a big city, like, not huge, but it’s big.
Jessica Motta: 35:06
Even there, like, people are super welcoming. And anyways, like, people are very, very warm here in Maine. Even though here is cold, people are warm. So That
Colt Knight: 35:13
was my next question is how you’re adapting to the winters.
Jessica Motta: 35:16
Well, I’ve been in Wisconsin before.
Colt Knight: 35:19
Think So that’s pretty rough too.
Jessica Motta: 35:20
Yeah. And even Ohio, it’s not as warm. Like, during the winter it’s also super cold.
Colt Knight: 35:25
It only has four distinct seasons. So winter’s not quite as long Yeah. As it is here, but they can get quite a bit of weather in the winter in Ohio too. Yeah.
Jessica Motta: 35:34
So I’m handling just fine. I mean, I well, my first winter was like, I got here in December, I think it was 15, 16, whatever. So it has been like part of my winter here, but it’s definitely a lot. But the summer, it’s so beautiful and everything’s fine. You forget about the winter during the summer.
Colt Knight: 35:53
So I interviewed here, they asked me how I what I thought about winters and whatnot. And I was like, well, I lived in Wyoming for a while, so this is not not that big of a deal.
Jessica Motta: 36:05
Yeah. And the students here as well, I gotta tell, like, so far, all the undergrads that I had, they were just amazing. Like, they I remember my first week here, and then when I I was teaching UMaine Cows. One of the students, she came to me and she’s like, thank you so much for being here. We are really happy to have you here.
Jessica Motta: 36:22
I was like, oh my. I wasn’t waiting for that. Like so yeah. And I she brought me, like, a cheesecake from the Momo’s cheesecake. What is that?
Jessica Motta: 36:31
It’s delicious. So, yeah, Maine has like, people in here are amazing. My students are great, and I have nothing to complain right now. Like, just I love Maine so far. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 36:40
I had a student one time. She was the daughter of one of the meat processors that I work with. Mhmm. And she used to bring me steaks
Jessica Motta: 36:49
See.
Colt Knight: 36:49
All the time. Yeah. I was like, this is amazing.
Jessica Motta: 36:52
Mhmm. Yeah. I really enjoy it. Like, we’ve I feel like we are in a small land grant university, and that makes everything easier.
Colt Knight: 37:02
Mhmm.
Jessica Motta: 37:02
It’s somehow, like, it’s pretty easy for me. If I need to buy something, it might take some time, but I know who I need to talk to, and I know. Anyways, like, I know the face of the people here, so I can definitely go and talk to people and ask.
Colt Knight: 37:16
One of the nice things about a smaller university is we get a lot more freedom Yeah. To do what we what we would like to do. Some of the larger universities, there’s so many people there. Everyone is so compartmentalized. It’s like you have really specific jobs and you’re not allowed.
Colt Knight: 37:32
It’s kind of a faux pas to step into someone else’s lane and they can get clicky and Yeah. We don’t have that here. We’re all just one big family because we all have to work together Yeah. Get everything done.
Jessica Motta: 37:43
Because, like, I mentioned about the research that I’m planning to do with farmers, but I’m also using the Witter Farm for research. But over there, I’m gonna do more of the physiology study where I can collect serial blood samples and do all the things that I wanna do that I don’t need to, because I’m pretty sure if I get to a farm and ask someone to give some heifers to do some of the stuff that I’m gonna do, they’ll be like, no. Damn. Wait. But at Witter, I have the freedom of doing kind of what I want as well.
Jessica Motta: 38:08
So
Colt Knight: 38:09
yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s a little bit more challenging. Yeah. Because, like, when you’re in Wisconsin, they might have 10,000 head dairies.
Colt Knight: 38:15
Mhmm. So if you need 30 or 40 cows to do a study on, it’s not that big of a deal.
Jessica Motta: 38:20
Yeah. That’s what I’m facing right now. Yeah. That’s But
Colt Knight: 38:22
here, that might be their entire herd or half their herd and they they can’t drop them out of production long enough to do
Jessica Motta: 38:28
that. So
Colt Knight: 38:29
it can be a challenge. There’s some challenges with a smaller state.
Jessica Motta: 38:32
Mhmm. But we’re gonna figure it out. I am figuring out little by little, but, yeah, it’s it’s it’s going pretty well,
Colt Knight: 38:39
to
Jessica Motta: 38:39
be honest. But yeah.
Colt Knight: 38:41
Well, Jessica, it’s been great having you with us on the podcast. Is there anything that you would you wanna you wanna plug or shout out to?
Jessica Motta: 38:49
Just say thank you for having me. And if you that are listening to us, if you are a farmer, you have a dairy farm and you wanna do some reproductive research, you can always reach me out. I’m gonna give you my contact information. But, yeah, I’m open to discuss ideas and work together. Yep.
Colt Knight: 39:09
Well, thanks for coming. We’d like to remind the listeners if you have questions, comments, concerns, suggested episodes, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. The email is extension.farmcast@maine.edu.
Jessica Motta: 39:27
We did it. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 39:29
That’s all there is
Jessica Motta: 39:30
to it. Oh, how many? Probably, like, almost an hour.
Colt Knight: 39:34
Thirty nine minutes. Oh.
Jessica Motta: 39:36
Do they listen to 30? Are you gonna cut some stuff or usually just No, I don’t edit these things at all. Okay, cool. Yeah, it was easier than I thought.