Define a beef supply chain system through to a specified end product
Did you know work was done to use end product to develop a genetic model for sire selection?
| Project start date: | 16 November 2003 |
| Project end date: | 30 December 2007 |
| Publication date: | 21 July 2022 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Grass-fed Cattle |
| Relevant regions: | Southern Australia |
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Download Report
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Summary
The project defined the most important variables contributing to the reliable production of a specified beef product and once identified used these to design production and communication strategies within the supply chain. These strategies included critical control points at the production level that were a must for meeting compliance to the specified beef product and elements of feedback that were necessary for decision making in the whole supply chain.
Objectives
1. Genetic benchmarking within commercial herds will report the genetic merit of the individual herds with breed average and the average of herds within the group. Comparison of the herd means with breed means and group means will assist to establish an appropriate selection index for the individual herds.
2. Estimates of genetic merit in the 10 herds will be tested along with records of growth and pasture availability for their importance to the predictable performance of a specified beef product. Also included will be flight time measures on-farm and at the feedlot to study the value of this technique.
3. A data audit trail will be developed and tested on the 10 herds using the LR.com software to facilitate the adoption of the quality assurance system across all herds.
4. Sire selection and mating allocation decisions will be tested in the 4 ACR herds and the 6 test herds. The possibility of using TGRM in conjunction with the estimates of genetic merit will be evaluated.
5. Towards the end of this project a workshop will be held to review the efficiency of the whole design including the progeny testing component and the suitability of the commercial product.
Key findings
1. Identification and reinforcement of the fact that selection of sires is critical to the production of traits such as carcase weight, fatness and marbling.
2. Demonstration that herd differences are significant and carcase feedback is important to benchmark these herd differences.
3. A simple system of genetic benchmarking for commercial herds has been developed and trialed. This will allow commercial breeders to fine tune their selection procedures.
Benefits to industry
This project demonstrated a simple to use model to predict the genetic merit of a commercial herd. The data collected from this project was also submitted to BREEDPLAN, resulting in increased accuracy for carcase EBVs.
Future research
The broader industry will benefit from the further development of the sire input model and recommendations from the analysis of carcase feedback. The sire input model should be developed as a web based service to make it readily available.
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For more information: Contact Project Manager: Data Load
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