DENVER, Colo. – Purebred cattle breeders know all about the benefits of expected progeny differences and pedigree information, says Kent Andersen of Pfizer Animal Genetics.
Now they need to be convinced about the value of genomics.
“Genomics is a natural evolution that we can leverage the knowledge we have with the bovine genome or the genome of other livestock species and get a read at the gene level of performance so we can jump start selection accuracy of animals earlier in life,” he said last month at the International Livestock Congress in Denver.
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Genomic information tells breeders if an animal has a greater opportunity to inherit certain characteristics, while pedigrees allow for comparisons of animals across environments and can help manage inbreeding.
Genetic testing can correctly identify parents and often pinpoint genetic diseases among individuals.
“Carrier animals are often indistinguishable from animals that are free of the condition,” he said.
There was a time when major problems such as dwarfism could not be well predicted, which meant every animal that was related to a carrier animal was devalued or eliminated.
“In that process of eliminating those, we often got rid of a lot of genetics that were possessed by animals that could have been quite valuable,” Anderson said.
Breed associations now work with genetic companies to test animals to determine whether they are disease free or carriers.
The next step is to find quality attributes such as marbling, growth and longevity.
Genetic companies use statistical analysis to develop a molecular breeding value for animals resulting in genomic enhanced expected progeny differences (EPDs) that can be included on a pedigree in an easy to read format.
They are also developing breed specific profiles for dairy and some beef breeds, such as Angus and Limousin.
These profiles are more useful than all-breed profiles that look at general traits such as polled, said Jim Gibb of Merial-Igenity.
For example, the Australian Brahman association released genomic enhanced EPDs for tenderness two years ago.
Breeds still need to collect traditional EPDs, but genomics can provide a greater degree of accuracy for animals without offspring or information on traits that are hard to measure, such as feed efficiency, said Gibb.
Average seed stock operations tend to be small and have trouble collecting large amounts of data to develop genetic comparisons within a herd.
However, genomics information can now be collected quickly from individual animals and numeric scores assigned to the likelihood of that animal having a certain trait. These are known as accuracy values.
“Accuracy is an indicator of how reliable that EPD is and how much it might change with more information,” Gibb said.
Genomic EPDs will have their greatest impact on young bulls, replacement heifers and potential donor dams.
“It really doesn’t pay to test an old, proven bull because the accuracy value isn’t going to change. The impact will be on the young animals so you can make faster generation turnover and genetic progress,” he said.
Genetic information can distinguish individuals because full siblings are not the same, even though they are often marketed as being equal.
Producers can make better decisions in breeding selection and at the commercial level when they have more information about their animals.
“Theoretically you could use genomics in your genetic selection in the place of growth promotants,” said Andersen.
The products may be needed only to improve growth in certain animals, while those that already have the ability to grow well and produce high quality, well marbled carcasses may not receive any treatments.
