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ACCELERATING GENETIC GAINS
Increase cost efficiency and productivity – on-farm
Science for the future
Accelerating the current rates of genetic improvement is fundamental for both the cattle and sheep industries to enhance their competitiveness in the increasingly tough global environment of declining terms of trade and increased consumer expectations.
We invested heavily in DNA technologies as our best chance at hastening this improvement but they do not offer a silver bullet solution to genetic improvement. Large gains from single genes or gene markers are the exception rather than the rule for most production traits.
Beefing up
A notable exception was discovered during the year when the analysis of GeneSTAR DNA markers for tenderness in beef showed a significant effect against animal performance, allowing it to be included in the industry’s genetic selection program BREEDPLAN as part of the SmartGene collaboration next year.
However, we found there was insufficient evidence that the commercial markers for marbling added value to selection decisions where estimated breeding values are available and markers for net feed intake should be considered experimental.
Our investment in the Co-operative Research Centre for Beef Genetic Technologies investigating maternal productivity continues to collect data to allow more precise estimates of the relationship between maternal and carcase traits to improve BREEDPLAN indexes and genetic progress.
Sheep shape up
Genetic change in the prime lamb industry is starting to accelerate and during the year we added two new traits to the arsenal of selection criteria producers can access to improve their flock productivity. Gestation length and ease of lambing were integrated into the Sheep Genetics program as Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs), which will allow producers to improve lamb survival in their flocks.
Work also continued to develop the SNP chip (single nucleotide polymorphism) technological platform in anticipation of its delivery to the sheep industry mid next year, which will allow much greater certainty and timeliness for breeding decisions. We also began collaboration with the Sheep CRC Information Nucleus flocks to speed up the rate of genetic validation and delivery to industry by cutting about two years off the time to accurately measure genetic merit. The collaboration will also work on prototyping ASBVs for yield and eating quality.
