P.PSH.1221 - Building and delivering effective genomic selection for northern Australian cattle
Including project data in BREEDPLAN significantly improved EBV accuracies for genotyped Brahmans, with the largest increases seen in gestation length (18%), days to calving (48%), heifer age at puberty (48%).
| Project start date: | 22 November 2019 |
| Project end date: | 30 April 2025 |
| Publication date: | 20 October 2025 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Grain-fed Cattle, Grass-fed Cattle, Sheep, Goat, Lamb |
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Summary
Genetics is crucial for boosting productivity, profitability, and sustainability in the beef industry. Accurate prediction of genetic merit is essential for effective use. This research focused on improving genetic evaluation for Australia's tropically adapted beef breeds, benefiting breeders, the supply chain, and consumers. Enhanced data collection will increase EBV accuracies, especially for female reproduction, and inform improvements to BREEDPLAN evaluations for northern production systems.
Objectives
Delivering enhanced genetic products to industry and remove barriers to adoption in northern Australia via:
- Recording high precision phenotypes across 3 tropically adapted beef breeds in Northern Australia
- Working with service providers, breed societies and northern seedstock breeders
Key findings
- Genomic reference populations increase the number of young bulls available with EBVs.
- Basic recording increases EBV accuracy.
- New traits create an opportunity to select additional traits influencing profit, and the recording of them in the reference populations allows delivery via genomics.
Benefits to industry
- Increase in Northern Australian animals genetically described by BREEDPLAN EBV's and selection indexes
- 88,000+ animals have been genotyped and included in the BREEDPLAN single-step evaluations
MLA action
This project has developed novel traits creating opportunities to expand genomic evaluations to identify genetics more suited to northern Australia environments.
Future research
- Expand on the number of breeds evaluated head-to-head to build greater multi- breed capacity
- Investigate cheaper genotyping strategies and technologies
- Conduct across-breed research EBV demonstration field days
