A Steak in Genomics™

Use Information Extracted from Data to Breed a Better Calf Crop and Cow Herd Here is a fun conversation starter on your next visit to the coffee shop or diner. What is the most important trait in cattle production? What trait do you think is most important? Another way to ask this question, how do you define a "good" cow? In a typical group of cattle producers, you will get a lot of different answers. One person will say weaning weight and another will say marbling. A third may say calving ease, "Gotta have a live calf." A fourth may say fertility. But, why are these different traits important? Because they affect the profitability of beef operations! Profit is the most important trait in beef production. The profitability of a bull's or cow's calves should be our number one criterion when selecting breeding stock.  How many beef producers go to a bull sale to buy a load of soil or a bag of feed? In other words, do we go to a bull sale to buy the environmen...

Darrh Bullock University of Kentucky Precision agriculture has come to various industries. Luckily, there are already tools to do precision breeding in beef cattle. Let's talk about farm/ranch goals. For example, our goals may be to Support two families Keep workers safe Effectively use the resources we have Breeding objectives are genetically influenced objectives to help achieve farm and ranch goals. In Darrh's opinion, breeding objectives should impact the quality of life of the farm and ranch owners and workers. These objectives should improve economic, social, welfare and convenience factors of a farm. Certain traits in our breeding objective will allow us to be more efficient and have a smaller environmental impact. Other traits will be in our breeding objective simply because they make our life more convenient. Darrh pointed out that production efficiency is the key. The beef industry needs to reduce the amount of mature size and milk so that cows are mor...

The Red Angus Association of America is seeking feedback on their economic selection indexes. Producers can provide feedback at this link: https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5183855/RedAngusAssociation?fbclid=IwAR3qskT1DJ6UMbSIS2R3ul316FQ6L_k-Gt_DYDq8wB8omLQOgkG1yCuAGbM To be frank, I am conflicted by this process. On one hand, I think it is important to have translational research be a collaborative process. Further, users are more likely to trust and use a technology if they were involved in its creation. However, often times, optimal selection decisions are counterintuitive  (need to write a blog post on this). I feel strongly that selection decisions are best made when driven by data, and that includes design of selection tools. American Angus Association went through a similar process, and it is my understanding they used the survey data to weight economic importance of traits that are hard to pin down, such as claw set and docility. Traits that are economically important,...

Join the AGI team for an informative webinar on the upcoming $Value changes What: Tune into the “$Value Changes” webinar hosted by Dr. Dan Moser, Dr. Stephen Miller and Kelli Retallick as they walk through the upcoming changes to the $Values. When: Mark your calendar for 6 – 8 p.m. CDT on Monday, May 20, 2019. Where:  Click below to register for the webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Don't forget, www.Angus.org/Index serves as an educational resource for all $Value update information. Register Today!

Updates are based on a major research effort and will be effective this June. The American Angus Association® Board of Directors approved changes to the $Value Indexes during the February board meeting Feb. 18-21, 2019. Updated $Value Indexes will be available this June, and changes include revisions to Beef Value ($B), updating the Weaned Calf Value ($W) model to the new Maternal Value ($Maternal) and rounding all $Values to whole dollars to eliminate decimals. Quality Grade ($QG) and Yield Grade ($YG) will be removed because $QG is redundant to the Marbling EPD, and $YG is redundant to Fat and REA EPDs. In addition, a balanced index will be implemented June 2020 with a complete education plan to be executed with the membership and industry to take place over the next 15 months. “Our current $Value Index models have served us well since 2004,” said Dan Moser, Angus Genetics Inc. president. “But since 2004, technology has improved, and new EPDs have been created. So, an ex...

Bob Hough recently posted the following comment on Facebook (posted with his permission): Early in my career at a breed association, the much beloved American Angus breed executive told me that the secret to success running a breed association was to have a top junior program, keep the books straight, and make sure the numbers (EPDs) don't change. This philosophy meant Angus valued stability in their genetic predictions over keeping them up-to-date with the latest science. The Angus Association also marketed extremely effectively the infallibility of their EPDs because of the size of their database. I will start with the later. Yes, a database needs certain critical mass to make sure the animals are tied, but that can be achieved in a modest size database. After that, data quality far and away outweighs data quantity in assuring the most precise and reliable EPDs possible. On the former point, Angus breeders are simply not use to change. This is not the case in most breed associ...

University of Missouri's Southwest Research Center near Mt. Vernon hosted an open house December 3rd that gave attendees a peek at the direction beef cattle research is taking at the 890 acre Center. Dr. Jordan Thomas, MU Extension beef reproduction specialist, led the presentations by asking if producers think they can afford not to use technology. Specifically, he mentioned estrus synchronization and artificial insemination. "The genetics of the AI bred calves allows producers to be competitive with the best herds in the country due to the use of elite bulls with higher accuracy expected progeny differences (EPD)," said Thomas. "The protocol results in more early-born heifers that are more likely to conceive earlier and remain in the herd longer." That longevity adds to herd profitability over the females lifetime. Their early-born steer mates will also be heavier than those out of a natural service sire that's born late in the calving season. Dr....

Matt Spangler University of Nebraska-Lincoln Are we done with changes? Releasing a single-step evaluation should allow us to focus attention on other topics and needs. EPD have been available to the U.S. beef industry for over 40 years. Survey results suggest that 30% of beef producers use EPDs or indexes as their primary selection criteria. Part of the lack of technology adoption is likely due to the confusion surrounding how best to use them. Also, some breed associations publish in excess of 20 EPD per animal. There are increasing number of EPDs, but we continue to publish indicator traits such as Birth Weight, when we have the economically relevant trait published, Calving Ease in this case. Selection indexes were first published in 1942, but the first breed-wide selection index for beef cattle was published in 2004. We have terminal and general purpose indexes in the beef industry. "We don't have any truely maternal indexes in the beef industry," Spangler sa...

Lee Leachman Leachman Cattle of Colorado Leachman's uses three indexes, $Ranch which is birth through weaning, $Feeder which is weaning to carcass, and $Profit which is $Ranch and $Feeder combined. "Most of us as breeders cannot look at 22 traits and compute a quadratic equation to identify the best combination of traits." Leachman said. On the female side they are adding $2 per cow per year using the $Ranch index. They have data from a cooperator showing an increase in pounds weaned per cow exposed. "We know we can make rapid change. We know it can be significant," Leachman said. With Lu Ranch, they added an inch to ribeye, doubled the number of cattle qualifying for CAB, and improved other traits included in the indexes. Leachman worked with his cooperators and after three years of discussion, they were able to share the indexes with other seedstock producers. Over 50 breeders are included in the evaluation. Over 38,000 records are added each year...

Shane Bedwell American Hereford Association Today is the 1 year plus 2 day anniversary of AHA's switch to single-step.This is the North American Hereford Genetic Evaluation including AHA and Canadian Hereford Association. They are currently working with Uruguay and Argentina are in the process of switching to the single-step approach. Part of the process was building a fully automated genomic pipeline to run the genetic evaluation weekly. They have been very happy with the quality controls measures that were built into this pipeline. AHA implemented a data pruning strategy to capitalize on their switch to whole-herd reporting in 2001. Animals that have data reported after 2001 plus 3 generations of their pedigree are included in the analysis. They have performance data on 2.3 million animals. They have genotypes on over 70,000 animals. Previously, all traits were fit in a single model. With the switch to single-step, AHA switched to 9 cluster models. They also re-paramet...

Darrh Bullock University of Kentucky Crossbreeding should always be a consideration for commercial cattlemen. Crossbreeding has the greatest benefit for reproduction and other lowly heritable breeds. Practical Guide to Bull Buying Determine marketing strategy. Will heifers be retained? Make breeding decisions based on specific marketing plan. But, change marketing plan based on current situations. It's pretty easy to find a bull that will give you great feeder calves and market animals. When we are keeping replacement females, we are now asking a bull to create females and feeder calves. We've given him a new job. Determine your management level. What is your labor? How frequently do you visit your cattle? How much attention do you give to them? What is your level of nutritional management? Assure that bulls are reproductively sound with a BSE. Check for structural soundness. This is doubly important if you are retaining females. The tough one is to set performa...

Jared Decker, PhD University of Missouri One point must be clear from the very beginning: EPDs work . When we select parents based on EPDs the genetic merit for that trait increases in our herd. When we select the parents using EPDs the performance of the next generation improves. EPDs Defined EPD stands for Expected Progeny Difference. These three words are loaded with meaning, thus the need to define them here. The most loaded word is Expected. Here we use Expected the way a statistician would use the word. Expected means we are making a prediction of a future value. But, in this context, Expected also means we are describing the average of a group. What is the group for which we are predicting the average? We are predicting the average performance of the Progeny or calves out of an animal. An animal’s own performance and its EPD can be quite different, because that is not the purpose of an EPD. The EPD is predicting the average performance of that animal’s calf crop. Final...

Stewart Bauck Neogen Vice President of Agrigenomics This is the 50th aniversary of the BIF Symposium. Fifteen years ago at BIF, the sequencing of Dominette for the first cattle genome sequence was announced. GeneSeek now has laboratories all over the world. They have worked with customers and collaborators to develop over 50 custom assays (DNA tests). There are 3 pillars of GeneSeek's success: High quality data Fast Turn-Around Time Fair Pricing Dr. Mitch Abrahamsen Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer Recombinetics Precision Breeding for Animal Health and Productivity: What does it take to deploy technology in the market place? Recombinetics has 3 product lines. Two are focused on applications of gene-editing to human medicine.  The agriculture product is called Acceligen. Acceligen uses gene editing to move DNA variants from one breed to a different breed.  Recombinetics has 22 patents.  To date, all genetic progress is th...

Moderator: Tommy Perkins, International Brangus Breeders Association Panelists:   Kelley Sullivan, Santa Rosa Ranch Donnell Brown, RA Brown Ranch What DNA tests do you require when you buy a bull? Parentage? Genetic Defects? Polled? Coat Color? What trait is most important in bull selection? Does genomic testing provide value? Donnell Brown currently markets 4 different breeds (Angus, Red Angus, SimAngus and a 4-breed composite called Hotlander ™ ). Brown has been involved with 17 different breeds. They DNA parentage test every animal born on their place. Five to ten percent of animals have the wrong parentage assigned. Cows swap calves. The wrong straw gets pulled out of the tank. A bull comes over from two pastures over and then goes home before we ever knew he was out. Would we prefer to use a bull with one calf crop or a bull with no calves? Most producers prefer the bull with more data. Genomic-enhanced EPDs provide the same amount of information as the first calf cr...

Written by Jackson Barry. Canton, MO, Canton FFA, Shamrock 4-H in Clark County To me, being a beef breeder in the 21st century means using every tool on the belt of the cattle industry. The goal? Produce the highest quality, most efficient cattle. Genetics is our biggest asset, because even the best management cannot overcome inferior quality. I will elaborate on the many potentials for higher production and profit through better genetics, record keeping, use of technology, and effective management. First, genetics. We can and will select those cattle who produce the most for the least. To be more specific, instead of looking at output per cow, we must look at output per unit of land, as in pounds of beef that make it to the rail compared with acres used. The fact is, a larger cow will often produce more than her smaller contemporary. However, if we step back and see the big picture, we can run more moderate sized cattle on a given pasture than larger cows. Also, it has been prove...

Written by Duane Dailey Beef-cow herd owners will learn new ways to raise better calves at three University of Missouri meetings in March. The sessions lead producers from proven breeding to new uses of DNA. MU Extension animal scientists David Patterson and Jared Decker will lead the ReproGene Meetings. Management of fixed-time artificial insemination allows more live calves and more uniform calf crops. New DNA tools make rapid advances in beef quality. Genomics allow breeders to predict traits of the next generation. Traditionally, breeders use expected progeny differences (EPDs). Now, new EPDs add DNA data. Pedigrees and production testing are still used; however, genetically-enhanced EPDs give more accuracy. A simple DNA test with blood or hair samples replaces years of production testing. With GE-EPDs, the added DNA speeds improving traits, whether for maternal or meat market ends. Recent high premiums at packing plants signal demand for more high-qual...

Four sessions will help producers better utilize genetics in beef production Cattle genetics will be the focus of a new set of webinars to help cattlemen and women better use the tool in their operations.  The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is teaming up with six genetics specialists from across the country to offer the NCBA Cattlemen’s Genetics Webinar Series, which will kick off Jan. 18, 2018. Titled “Fake News: EPDs Don’t Work,” the January webinar will be followed by sessions in February, March and April that explore other aspects of genetic utilization that will give cattle producers a knowledge boost on cattle selection and breeding. Providing expertise to producers through the webinar series is the eBEEF team, a group of six genetic specialists from five academic institutions that have invested time and resources in the advancement of the cattle industry through genetics. Members of the team are: Darrh Bullock, Ph.D., University of Kentucky; Jared Decker, Ph.D....

Dorian Garrick Theta Solutions LLC The Theta Solutions LLC is made up of Dr. Bruce Golden, Dr. Dorian Garrick, and Dr. Daniel Garrick. They have developed the BOLT software for genetic and genomic evaluations. The American Hereford Association formed an advisory committee to check the new genetic evaluation system. The advisory committee looked at the process during development. The advisory committee included: Joe Ellis Jack Holder Lee Haygood Paul Bennett Mitch Abrahamsen Suppose we had 100 progeny (i.e. offspring) on 1 bull. You might look at that bull and decide you like him or you don’t like him. But, that bull is just an envelop that carries genetic information. What the bull looks like really doesn’t matter, what matters is what his progeny look like. The way to look at the genetic value, or breeding value, of the bull is to look at his offspring. But, there are lots of environmental effects that influence the performance of the offspring. One example is the age ...