A SERIES of six upcoming webinars being hosted by Southern Beef Technology Services (SBTS) and Tropical Beef Technology Services (TBTS) will touch on key topics of interest to herd-improvement minded commercial cattle producers as well as seedstock producers.

SBTS and TBTS are joint initiatives of Meat and Livestock Australia, the Agricultural Business Research Institute and Breed Societies covering tropical and temperate breeds.

Their main purpose is to provide the members of participating breed societies with technical support that enables seedstock breeders and others to maximise their understanding and use of the different genetic technologies that are available within the Australian industry, including BreedPlan, BreedObject Selection Indexes, Internet Solutions, TakeStock and DNA based technologies.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the upcoming webinar topics. Each webinar will run for about 60 minutes, and clickable links are provided in each of the topic headlines below to allow readers to register to join.

Choosing bulls to suit your program

Monday 12 September at 8pm AEST
Do you know how to sort and search sale catalogues using Internet Solutions? Can you quickly identify which sale animals meet your breeding objectives? If not, this webinar is for you. This webinar will demonstrate how to search sale catalogues to identify bulls that suit a particular breeding objective (e.g. heifer bulls). Once you have searched the catalogue and identified the bull(s) that suit your breeding objectives, all that is left to do is print out the list of suitable bulls, do a visual inspection for structure on sale day, and make a winning bid. Seedstock and commercial producers are encouraged to attend.

Getting it right: Management groups & contemporary groups

Monday 26 September at 8pm AEST
What is a management group? What is a contemporary group? Do you know how to manage your herd to maximise contemporary group size and effectiveness? When and why should you separate animals into different management groups? Why are single animal contemporary groups and single sire contemporary groups undesirable? This webinar will discuss the answers to these questions and more. Following this webinar, breeders should be able to make informed management decisions on farm to get the most from BreedPlan.

Making BreedPlan work for you: Performance recording problems to avoid

Monday 10 October at 8pm AEDT
Do you feel that your BreedPlan EBVs don’t reflect what you are seeing on farm? Could you inadvertently be biasing your EBVs? The quality of data coming into BreedPlan is important – “rubbish in” equals “rubbish out”. This webinar will outline common performance recording problems which many beef producers encounter, and explain how to avoid them. Providing quality data to BreedPlan will benefit you and your clients, so make sure you are doing it right.

Fertility matters: Recording fertility information with BreedPlan

Monday 24 October at 8pm AEDT
Reproductive performance is a key determinant of profitability in a beef cattle enterprise. Consequently, selection for improved reproductive performance should be an important consideration for all beef cattle producers. This webinar will outline how you can record both female and male fertility information with BreedPlan, and how fertility EBVs can be utilised to improve fertility in your herd.

Collecting abattoir carcase information for BreedPlan

Monday 31st October 2016 at 8pm AEDT
What are the benefits of collecting abattoir carcase data for use in the BreedPlan analysis? What carcase data can be submitted to BreedPlan? What are the requirements for collecting abattoir carcase information for use in BreedPlan? What are the pitfalls to avoid? This webinar will outline how beef producers can go about collecting and submitting abattoir carcase data to BreedPlan.

Where to with Genomics?

Monday 14th November 2016 at 8pm AEDT
How does genomics work? Will all animals benefit equally from having a genomic test? Will performance recording still be necessary in the genomics era? This webinar will outline how genomics works, what the current state of play is for genomics in the Australian beef industry, and look at where we are going with genomics into the future. In addition, the webinar will discuss the role of performance recording in the genomics era and how breeders can best utilise genomics in their herds.

Producers wishing to attend one or more of these webinars can simply click on the title of the webinar they wish to attend. This will take them through to the registration page. Alternatively, registrations can be made from the webinars page on the SBTS or TBTS websites.  Click here.

It’s recommended that participants check their computer system prior to the webinar, to ensure they can log onto the webinar on the night. Further information on how to check your system is provided in the return registration acknowledgement email, which will land in your inbox.

For further information regarding the webinar series, contact SBTS or TBTS.