THE uptake of genomic information in cattle breeding is rapidly gathering pace, as more breeders seek to understand their cattle and identify superior genetic lines.
The uptake within Australia has seen the inclusion of single step within Breedplan, while for the Shorthorn breed, the opportunity to access an international genetic database has led to the development of ShorGene underpinned by IGS.
The move by Shorthorn Beef to use the IGS system, instead of Breedplan, was announced earlier this year.
Shorthorn breed development officer Graham Winnell told Beef Central earlier this year that the move towards IGS was important as both the US and Canadian Shorthorn breeds subscribed to the IGS program.
“Adoption of IGS would allow us to put the US, Canadian and Australian Shorthorn populations in a single analysis on one database – all reporting the same Expected Progeny Differences*.” (*EPDs are similar to Australian Breedplan’s Estimated Breeding Values).
“As a breed of moderate size in Australia, such a move would greatly change our metrics,” Mr Winnell said.
Since publication of the original article in February, one leading Shorthorn breeder has moved to have the stud’s entire herd gnomically profiled. Marellan Shorthorns made the decision to complete testing of its herd for a number of reasons.
Stud principal Lincoln Job described the decision as a choice to learn more about his cattle and to accelerate genetic progress, both within his herd and for his clients’ herds.
“We wanted to learn more about our cattle, and we also wanted to be at the forefront of DNA technology,” he said.
Following the decision to profile the herd, Marellan will become the first Australian seedstock operation to offer bulls with DNA-enhanced Breeding Values. The impact of herd profiling has seen the accuracies of some animals improve across the herd.
Although the move to the new system offers a greater chance for comparison of animals across the international Shorthorn breed, at a sale level there will be some new challenges for bull buyer producers as they work through the catalogue.
Genomic information presented differently
One of the biggest changes will be to see genomic information presented as an EPD (Expected Progeny Difference). In practical terms this will mean many of the traits will be expressed in Imperial measurements (pounds and square inches) rather than the more familiar metric measurements.
Lincoln Job recognises that producers may be uncertain about the presentation of the EPDs. He explained the information on each bull does contain the profiled traits and these have been ranked into percentage bands.
“The rank percentage describes the position of the particular EPD relative to the Shorthorn Beef population,” he said.
“For people looking to buy bulls, the percentages are going to be very useful to see where traits are and to choose animals best suited to their program.”
The undertaking to profile the entire herd has not been a small task. However Lincoln describes it as a part of the breeding program, but that it was really about adding to the breeding ‘toolbox’, rather than giving all the answers.
“There’s just so much we don’t know yet. We see great benefit in having DNA profiles on our whole herd. Going forward, every animal including culls, will have a DNA tissue sample taken at weaning. This will confirm parenting, add to the accuracies of our performance recording and help to identify superior individuals, speeding up genetic progress in our herd.”
While committed to continuing to use DNA profiling, including samples on agistment cattle, there is strong recognition of the ongoing importance of physical suitability and selection on phenotype within the Marellan herd. As a long-term vision, Lincoln says he hopes that to identify genes relating to lower tick burdens, grassfed marbling and northern survivability.
As the first bulls with this data go under the hammer, it is likely that there will be strong interest from producers both within the Shorthorn breed and from other breeds keen to see how commercial producers respond to the information now on offer.
Alastair Rayner
Alastair Rayner is the Principal of RaynerAg, an agricultural advisory service based in NSW. He regularly attends bull sales to support client purchases and undertakes pre sale selections and classifications. He can be contacted here or through his website www.raynerag.com.au