Northern BREEDPLAN technical officer

Summary

Continued BREEDPLAN development in northern Australia is important as this region represents over 60% of the Australian beef herd. The role of improved genetics has strong support from the major pastoral companies, which, through their buying power are sending clear messages to the breeds utilised in their breeding programs. While difficult to measure, it is believed that during the four years of the TCTS project, there has been a steady growth in demand for objectively measured stock from the broader bull buying community, albeit there is still ample scope for better selection decision making by many in the industry. The Technical Officer, operating within the entity known as Tropical Cattle Technology Services (TCTS), has now completed its fourth year of operation. Progress made against the majority of Project goals, and in particular the specific measurable goal of doubling the number of calves analysed on BREEDPLAN, was achieved in advance of targets.

In 1998, it was estimated that only 6% of tropically adapted bulls in use were evaluated by BREEDPLAN. Since it had been shown in southern Australia that the use of BREEDPLAN bulls has delivered significant genetic improvement, it was decided to work with industry to increase the rate of adoption of BREEDPLAN in northern Australia.

​In collaboration with activities being conducted with the Tropical Breed Societies and extension groups, the Northern BREEDPLAN Technical Officer was able to achieve the following within tropically adapted breeds between 1998 and 2002:

An increase in the number of calves recorded on BREEDPLAN per year from 11,751 to 26,008
An increase in the number of herds enrolled in BREEDPLAN from 125 to 231
An increase in the percentage of Herdbook recorded calves on BREEDPLAN from 22% to 44% (during this period the number of Herdbook recorded calves also rose by 8.2%)
The majority of breeds now run GROUP BREEDPLAN analyses
The Brahman Index (which estimates the value of animals for production of 100 day fed export weight carcasses) has increased by $1/cow/year over the last three years. This shows that the genetic improvement through BREEDPLAN translates to economic benefits in beef production.

The Northern BREEDPLAN Technical Officer has also assisted producers in the usage of personal computers to record pedigree and performance data enabling direct submission to Society and BREEDPLAN databases. As electronic submission of data has increased steadily over the past four years, this will lead to increased quality of data, and as a result, improved BREEDPLAN accuracy.

Due to the success of this project, the Northern BREEDPLAN Technical Officer will continue to be funded by MLA, ABAI and the Tropical Breed Societies for an additional three years.​