This was welcome news for more than 50 Jersey breeders who visited two farms in the Waipu district of Northland for the annual JerseyGenome field day.
NZAEL manager Jeremy Bryant explained the outcomes of a review of the national breeding objective (NBO), the effective trait emphasis and the latest economic value update.
Although all Breeding Worth (BW) averages have risen, Friesians and Ayrshires have shifted down by 5-10 points relative to Jerseys.
This is because of the greater value put on milkfat, which has risen nearly 14% in the table of economic values for different traits in 2014 compared with 2013.
In early February NZAEL published the economic value changes and their implications.
The values resulted from rolling five-year average milk prices (four years historical and one year forecast from Fonterra) and the opportunity cost of feed, livestock values and economic survey data.
The milkfat trait is now valued at $2.04/kg against $1.79 last year, a rise of 13.97%. The protein trait is valued at $9.17/kg against $8.63, a rise of 6.26%. Milk volume is now minus .099c/litre (about -10c), against minus .091c, a fall of 8.79%.
The liveweight trait is now minus $1.66/ kg, against minus $1.52, a fall of 9.21%. The value of the fertility trait has gone down 2.31% and the residual survival trait down 8.78%.
The value of the somatic cell score trait has remained steady at minus $38.37/SCS.
NZAEL explained that milkfat had the greatest increase due to marked shifts in the valued component ratio and a low VCR of 0.33 for 2007-08 dropping out of the average. The VCR last year was 0.42 and this year it is 0.44,
Milk volume is penalised more strongly because of the higher opportunity cost of feed used for lactose, due to the now higher valued milk protein and fat that can be produced from the milking platform. The higher feed costs have caused the economic values of liveweight to become more negative.
“The changes in economic values have only a modest impact on rankings of bulls, while the higher relative value of fat works slightly in favour of Jerseys and to a lesser extent, crossbreds over Friesians,” it said.
The number of Jersey bulls ranking in the top 100 has risen from 25 to 28 and their average BW has gone up from 120 to 130.
The number of Friesian bulls has gone down from 39 to 37, this year compared with last year, and the average BW has risen only $5 to $11.
For cows, the average BW and Production Worth (PW) has risen $4.30-$4.50 in Friesians and $7.60-$8.40 for Jerseys, while the crossbred cow has risen $6.40 for BW and $9.30 for PW.
Bryant explained to the Jersey breeders that the effective trait emphasis on milkfat, protein and volume has come down from 66% to 51% because the review of the NBO found that the weighting on production traits was excessive.
The liveweight component has come down from 14% to 11.8% while the fertility component has risen from 7.7% to 14.7% and the residual survival has risen from 6% to 14.7% of the whole.
The NBO itself hasn’t changed because the modern cow needs to be able to convert feed efficiently, live longer and be able to get in-calf quickly, he said.
The genetic improvement in the national herd over the past decade has seen per cow production increase 23kg, feed demand increase by 160kg drymatter annually and cow efficiency increase by 5% (kg milksolids (MS) kg LWT) and 2.5% (kg MS/kg DM), resulting in $107 extra profit.
The consequence is that a herd of 300 cows now requires four to five tonnes more drymatter annually.
The field days visited two properties; where Daniel and Freya Lynch are sharemilking 400 Jersey cows and the nearby Grant family farm. The Lynchs’ Freydan Jersey herd has 100% recorded ancestry, BW of 149 and PW 169 and best production was in 2011-12 at 334kg MS/cow.
The Lynchs are using two JerseyGenome generated bulls, Badge and Bronco, from the highly commended dam Freydan Bracetta.
