A Steak in Genomics™

It’s bull sale season, which means sale catalogs are starting to show up. If you’re like me, there’s something fun about getting a new catalog and flipping through the pages of bulls, pedigrees, performance information, EPDs, accuracies and selection indexes. But after a few pages, all those numbers can start to look a little overwhelming. And that’s where I think we sometimes make bull selection harder than it needs to be. When I open a sale catalog, I don't want to start by looking for the bull with the biggest number. I want to start by asking a much simpler question: What do I need this bull to do? The answer is going to be different for every operation. Maybe you’re buying a bull to breed heifers and need to put a strong emphasis on calving ease. Maybe you’re producing calves to sell at weaning and want to emphasize growth. Maybe you’re retaining ownership through harvest, or maybe you're building a cow herd and need to think about the traits that will influence the daught...

  How genetics, reproduction, nutrition and economics came together to rethink replacement female selection The U.S. beef cow herd has been getting smaller, and rebuilding it isn't as simple as deciding to keep more heifers. For many producers, the decision at weaning comes down to a familiar choice: Do I sell this heifer, or do I keep her as a replacement?  But what if those aren't the only two choices? That question was one of the drivers behind Retain with Intention: Building a Better Missouri Cow Herd , an MU Extension program developed to take a different look at replacement heifer selection and development. When a heifer comes through the chute, we're often quick to think of her as either a replacement or a sale animal. But retaining a heifer is an investment. Once that decision is made, there are additional costs associated with developing her, getting her bred, carrying her through her first pregnancy and ultimately getting her into the mature cow herd. That mean...

 What does the “E” in EPD actually mean? Expected Progeny Difference. That word expected matters. A calf gets about half of its DNA from its sire and half from its dam—but it doesn’t get a perfectly predictable half. The genes passed from each parent are a random sample, which means full siblings can be genetically different from one another. That random shuffle of genes is one of the reasons EPDs are predictions of average progeny performance , not guarantees of what every individual calf will do. It’s also part of the reason genomic information can be useful. By giving us additional information about the genes an animal actually inherited, genomics can help improve our prediction of that animal’s genetic merit. I recently updated the MU Extension publication “The Random Shuffle of Genes: Putting the E in EPD” to help explain the science behind one of the most commonly used tools in beef cattle genetic selection. If you've ever wondered why an EPD is an expectation rather than...

 It’s been a while since I’ve written a Steak in Genomics article. Life has been busy, but in all the best ways. I’ve been working to get a research and Extension program off the ground at the University of Missouri, my husband and I bought a fixer-upper acreage, and, most importantly, we’ve been raising two toddlers. Somehow, somewhere in all of that, Steak in Genomics got pushed down the priority list. But I obviously haven’t stopped thinking about beef cattle genetics. A big part of my Extension work has been figuring out how to take the growing amount of information available through genetics and genomics and make it more useful for the people actually making decisions in a cattle operation. - Because there is no shortage of information.  We have EPDs, genomic testing, selection indexes, DNA tests, genetic trends and new technologies coming at us all the time. The challenge isn't necessarily getting more information. The challenge is knowing what to do with it. That has ...

This past fall, the Missouri Simmental Association and the University of Missouri had the pleasure of hosting Simmental and SimAngus breeders from across the United States to Columbia, MO for the American Simmental Association's Fall Focus meeting. I've always been a fan of this meeting due to its ability to bridge the gap between pivotal research findings and industry application. This year was extra special as I had the opportunity to share some of my research and passions with those individuals and breeders, among others here at the University of Missouri.  On Friday, the Missouri Simmental Association took the lead on developing the daily program, showcasing Missouri Agriculture and Missouri cattle production. A full summary of the program can be found in the October 2025 issue of The Register  here . Saturday, the American Simmental Association put together a morning educational program highlighting the importance of the maternal cow to profitable production systems. The ...

 If you have followed this blog - or lived in Missouri - for any period of time, then you've probably heard about hair shed scoring in beef cattle. If you have, then this post will hopefully serve as a reminder that now is (most likely) the time to go out into the pastures and collect scores. I've been traveling around the state, and country, over the last 18 months or so talking about the importance of matching cattle to their environment, and hair shed scoring fits perfectly into that conversation. However, the number one question I always get is "when do I score". While the short answer is always "it depends", the long answer is "when there is the most variability in your cow herd". With the days getting longer, weather warming up, and even bringing some hefty thunderstorms along with it, early shedders are likely almost shed, if not completely shed, while others in the herd still have their full winter coat.  While hair shedding in cattle is vi...

  For those of you who have followed this blog for some time, you are probably familiar with eBEEF. For those who are not, it is a collection of beef cattle genetics extension specialists from across the United States whose mission is to foster a research and outreach community and engage beef cattle producers through training and publications. To do that, we are asking for your help! Below is a link to a survey targeted at beef producers that make the selection decisions on buying bulls and/or semen on their operation. By providing this information, you will help our group better understand the motivations and breeding objectives of today's cattle producers. In exchange for your answers (and email address), you will be entered to win one of five $100 gift cards sponsored by the Beef Improvement Federation (BIF). Answer Survey HERE By entering your email address, you will also be invited to a special webinar for all participants to discuss the survey results and bull selection stra...

Individuals from the University of Missouri joined other  professionals from academic, research, allied industry and ranching backgrounds to discuss the future of phenotyping and data collection in the beef industry.  Troy Rowan, assistant professor of beef cattle genomics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, summarized the meeting in a white paper article, now available online.  While many ideas and controversial topics were discussed, the clear theme was that capturing new phenotypes, especially from commercial operations, is the future! Read the Full Article Here

For those Steak in Genomics readers who have been considering the value of commercial genomic testing, you may want to be made aware of the following opportunity. Completed participation in the project (6 to 12-month commitment) would result in 100 free INHERIT Select tests ($2,900 value) as well as an additional $3,000 cash incentive. While this is not affiliated with the University of Missouri, a lot of producers within the state would qualify based on one or more of the definitions below. USDA Climate-Smart Grant – Prescribed Grazing – Soil Sampling - Complementary INHERIT Select Testing Zoetis Beef Genetics is pleased to be working with Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Leachman Cattle of Colorado LLC to support first-generation and underserved ranchers in genetic testing and selection for production efficiency and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions. This project is funded by a grant from USDA’s Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities. Details are provided below: ...

 Jamie Courter and Jared Decker had the opportunity to present a webinar on hair shedding with the American Angus Association. Watch below! Didn't get your question answered? Be sure to check out our presentation at the Beef Improvement Federation Symposium on June 11th, 2024 at 3 pm. 

       For those who have been scrolling through social media and various agriculture-based news outlets in the past 12 to 18 months, it may seem as though there has been quite a few “new” genetic mutations or defects that have been identified. For most producers this is something they have dealt with before. But for others this may be the first time they are being faced with what seems like a “sky is falling” predicament. Regardless of which group you belong to, understanding what genetic mutations are, how they happen, and what to do when they are identified may prove helpful for the future.      To put this into perspective, cattle have 30 pairs of chromosomes. They inherit one of each pair from their sire and the other from their dam. A typical cattle genome consists of 2.7 billion nucleotides (A, T, G, C), or pieces of DNA, each occurring again in a pair. When they come together to form a fertilized egg, or future fetus, that is 5.4 billion nucleo...

The tool is part of a study published in an Oxford University Press journal and could be used to help cattle farmers improve the health, well-being and productivity of their herds.   A groundbreaking, newly-published study by CAFNR researcher Jared Decker uses genomics and citizen science to help cattle farmers and ranchers across the globe make better breeding selections that will ultimately improve sustainability, animal welfare and profitability of their operations. And, the key to all of this? Hair shedding. “This project has been really exciting to me because it blends both very basic research all the way to very applied research, so it is one of those rare projects that covers that wide spectrum,” said Jared Decker, associate professor of animal sciences and Wurdack Chair of Animal Genomics. According to Decker, some cows shed their winter hair more effectively than others. This means that some lose their heavy winter coats during the spring months before the heat of summer s...

 We have all heard the saying “You can’t judge a book by its cover”, but it is true that the cover is what initially draws a person to pick up the book in the first place. The same is true with selecting and breeding cattle. What the animal looks like matters. However, what the saying really means is it’s what is inside the book, or in this case underneath the animal’s hide, that adds the most value. The importance of phenotypic selection in cattle is non-negotiable. But, once someone has made that initial gate cut, genomics can help in marketing the value of sale bulls and heifers with increased confidence. Cattlemen and women do their best to select elite bulls to mate their cows to. Unfortunately, basic biology reminds us that variability exists even within the best mating plans. But exactly how much variability? Well, while discussed at length in the extension article The Random Shuffle of Genes: Putting the E in EPD , basic math tells us that within a single full sibling m...

In the last blog post, I defined Expected Progeny Differences (EPDs), the accuracy of said EPD, and the percentile rank. An EPD is an estimate of the genetic merit an animal will pass on to its progeny, on average. They can be used to sort animals according to their potential to make genetic change within a herd, or when making bull buying decisions. A percentile rank simply reports where the specific EPD for that animal ranks across the entire breed from 1 (top) to 100 (bottom). While I touched on the value of genomics and how it increases accuracy, to do that justice really takes a separate post – so here goes. Remember, EPD stands for ‘Expected’ Progeny Difference. In other words, it is the evaluation’s best assortation of an animal’s genetic merit based on the information available at the time. Traditionally, that would be the animal’s (assumed) pedigree, phenotype data, and progeny information. In the case of young sires, sometimes that can be limited simply due to their age. ...