Friday, March 29, 2024

Focus on beef genetics

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What difference will the newly-formed entity, Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) Genetics, make to beef breeders and commercial beef farmers? B+LNZ Genetics encompasses the activities of SIL (Sheep Improvement Ltd – the genetic evaluation system for NZ sheep), the B+LNZ Central Progeny Test for sheep, and innovation projects previously funded through Ovita. Importantly, B+LNZ Genetics will also include investment to support beef genetics. The total annual investment is $8.8 million for the next five years, supported by farmer levy payers and the Government – each year, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) will contribute $3m, B+LNZ $2.9m, and third parties $1.5m, with a further $1.4m being sought from other interested parties.
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A major focus is onfarm outcomes in terms of profit – not productivity. This is not to say that productivity is not important. Rather, it is saying that we want more profit a hectare, not just more profit an animal. We will look at opportunities to introduce new traits that better describe whole farm profit – for example, cow longevity, and beef meat qualities.

Relevance is important. Thus, the hill country environment takes a front seat. An increasing proportion of cow herds are run on hills, and more stock are now finished on hill country. Maternal traits are also in for extra attention, given the importance of the cow-to-farm profit.

B+LNZ Genetics wants genetic information to be easier for farmers and others in the value chain to use. With more information available than ever before, we need systems that help users identify what is most important for their business.

Three themes 

There are three strong themes within B+LNZ Genetics’ beef programme:

1. Better breeding objectives – getting the right “basket” of traits to focus on farm profit rather than productivity a head. Key traits missing from current breeding objectives will be introduced.

2. More accurate evaluations – how we collect information onfarm and how we use that, along with DNA tools, to make the most from these different but complementary technologies.

3. Matching genetics to user needs – identifying key signature traits for a given farm and providing tools that link these with farm business profit indicators. This will allow a bull buyer to shop for bulls meeting the genetic specification that delivers the herd performance improvements they want.

Beef industry representatives are being canvassed for their views on the key issues B+LNZ Genetics needs to address. There are strong messages coming through about cow size and reproductive efficiency, with an emphasis on maternal performance on hill country. People also want to see an alignment with premium product strategies.

Science experts will develop plans that address some of these issues – other ideas will be considered by experts in information use. The resulting plans will then be fine-tuned with industry representatives and the major genetics service suppliers.

Programmes of work will be underway as soon as practically possible, and you can look forward to reports on work carried out by B+LNZ Genetics in future editions of Heartland Beef.

We welcome your views about the key issues needing to be addressed in beef genetics – email: enquiries@beeflambnz.com, or call 0800 BEEFLAMB (0800 233 352). 

  • Dr Mark Young is the genetics manager for B+LNZ and SIL.
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