Friday, March 29, 2024

Genetic progress in his DNA

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Mark Young is genetics manager for Beef + Lamb NZ. Sandra Taylor talked with him about his job and the road leading to it. Mark Young is the sort of person you would want in your pub quiz team. He appears genuinely interested in – well- everything. His conversation ranges from early childhood brain development to art-house cinema and of course his day job at the helm of Sheep Improvement Limited (SIL). He jokes that when he was doing his post-graduate research at Lincoln University he was constantly being distracted by some piece of information that would capture his attention and take him miles away from where he started.
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Equally, when he is focused on something he becomes engrossed in what he is doing.

What Mark loves about his job at SIL is making sense of things, looking for patterns and anomalies in the data and, most importantly, looking for reasons behind the anomalies.

While he is skilled at crunching numbers and understanding the art and science of genetic improvement, he says he never loses sight of what he sees as being most important – providing farmers with the tools to improve their productivity and profitability.

One of the joys of his job is getting out and talking to farmers, sheep breeders and breed groups about genetics and what they can offer the farmer if used correctly.

“I’m always amazed at how intellectually interested farmers are – they are sponges for information. It’s sad there are not more people getting out and talking to them.”

Getting the word out 

Mark is the first to admit that there is a challenge with genetics in that it is a potentially complicated field peppered with jargon, so distilling information can be a challenge.

Over the years he has come to the conclusion that for many in the sheep breeding industry an appreciation of genetics is what is needed rather than an in-depth knowledge.

He thrives on the interaction he has with sheep breeders, both the supporters and the critics. He singles out Southland breeder Peter Black as being SIL’s staunchest supporter and its greatest critic.

For Mark this is the perfect mix as Peter will let him know when a component in SIL is not working for him. It is this feedback from breeders that drives improvements to the system.

When Mark took on the job at SIL back in 2001 he says many breeders were well on the way with genetic recording systems thanks to SIL’s predecessors the National Flock Recording Scheme, Sheep Plan, Animal Plan, Flock-Linc and Stud Fax. Then late in the 1990s having more than one system began to create problems. The Meat and Wool Boards at the time deemed it would be better to have a single industry recording system for sheep and so SIL began.

Mark had all the credentials for the job. He had spent five years at the Scottish Agricultural College setting up their CT scanner – something he had already done at Lincoln University – and was working on various research projects using the scanner – for example, scanning hill ewes to see how they used body fat throughout the year.

Mark has hard-won expertise on CT scanners, having being instrumental in building one scanner (the one still in operation in Lincoln University’s Johnston Laboratory) from two sourced from Dunedin and Auckland hospitals.

An engineer from the US who helped him told him that “CT” stood for “constant trouble” which is what they were in those early days.

Technological advances have made them infinitely more reliable and efficient, providing sheep breeders with invaluable information on carcase composition.

Mark jokes that the two most important job interviews he has ever had were conducted in his pyjamas.

The Scottish job and SIL were both phone interviews from opposite ends of the globe and the SIL job was the perfect one to lure Mark back to New Zealand. As is often the case, everything Mark had done previously had prepared him well for the role.

Born and bred in Wellington, his interest in agriculture was piqued when he and his family travelled to Dannevirke to visit farming friends throughout his childhood.

After leaving school Mark did a B. Ag Sci at Lincoln University with first-class honours followed by a Ph D and later by a Masters in Animal Breeding and Genetics at Edinburgh University.

He says that over his academic career he has been influenced by some great lecturers including Lincoln University academics Professor Andrew Sykes and Dr Alistair McArthur who taught Mark about biological variation and genetic theory.

At Edinburgh University, one of the world’s leading institutions for animal breeding and genetics, he was again influenced by Professor Bill Hill and Dr St Clare Taylor.

While the Scots were leading in this field academically, Mark says NZ has always led with applied systems and engagement with industry; seeing the outcomes of research used on-farm which is Mark’s raison d’etre.

When he first started at SIL Mark was working alongside George Cruikshank, a colleague from his Lincoln days. Mark is now Genetics Manager for Beef + Lamb NZ and still gets out to talk to farmers although not as often as he would like.

Since starting at SIL he has seen some significant gains in genetic merit in the sheep industry driven by both selection and by the effects of breed substitution arising from the development of composite sheep types.

The introduction of composites has not only lifted sheep performance by their own merit, it has also put a sharper focus on the breeding and performance of purebred sheep. Though sheep performance has lifted markedly in the past decade, Mark acknowledges several key factors still need attention. One is ewe (and beef cow) longevity. (See p52, Country-Wide September issue).

Lack of productive longevity is a cost to the system and so to get an understanding of the issue, Mark says many SIL flocks now record when and why ewes leave the flock.

As to whether hogget mating is affecting ewe longevity is not fully understood. Mark says there is a lack of good data around the argument that hogget lambing may reduce longevity – and maybe highly productive animals do wear out faster – but what they are really interested in is the net effect of hogget lambing in terms of maximising returns over a ewe’s lifetime relative to the cost of raising and running her.

“If there is a problem with a trait outside the breeding goal then we can bring that trait into our breeding programmes.”

Between one quarter and a half of the performance gains in sheep over the past 20 years can be attributed to genetic improvement; the rest can be put down to management factors such as feeding, fertiliser, subdivision and pregnancy scanning.

DNA is the next frontier. Mark sees it as being exciting but complicated.

“Where breeders can get a payback quickly is in DNA parentage tests because despite best management, stud breeders cannot be 100% accurate with parentage because they just can’t be out there watching lambing and calving all of the time. So DNA parentage tests are useful to make pedigrees more accurate.

“Research has shown that even under best practice there is an average of 9% of animals with incorrect parentage. This may explain why some rams that are good on paper just don’t deliver.”

Beyond basic parentage tests, problems have been encountered with the development of tools, not the least of which is that new SNP tests have to be calibrated for different genotypes, which adds a cost.

For example, DNA markers that predict fleece weight in Coopworths won’t do such a good job in Romneys. Mark stresses that this field is evolving fast and as more information is collected things will improve to give more accuracy to predictions for more traits in sheep.

New entity proposed 

SIL could well be undergoing a reincarnation if the proposed development of a new entity (Beef + Lamb New Zealand Genetics) comes into being, bringing together SIL, Ovita, AgResearch and Central Progeny Tests with investment in beef genetics also.

Mark is excited about the proposal as he feels the new entity will address what has been lacking for some time, that is the transfer of genetics technology to farmers, showing farmers how to make use of genetic information and how to best integrate DNA into genetic evaluation systems.

It is also going to put more emphasis on the needs of hill-country farmers with a strong focus on maternal genetics, profit and efficiency.

As for his role in this proposed new entity, Mark jokes that he’s not entirely sure which job he will apply for, but it does worry him that there are few qualified people in applied genetics to compete for such jobs.

“Genetics underpins our sheep and beef industries and there are good careers here since we lead the world in pastoral sheep and beef farming.”

The lack of capability in his area is worrying for the future of the sheep industry, but Mark is still some years away from retirement, so the charting of genetic progress for industry is in safe hands for a while yet.

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