The Namibian Santa Gertrudis Society uses the BREEDPLAN International evaluation system. The USA and Australian Santa Gertrudis also use BREEDPLAN International.

This has many advantages for the Namibian Santa Gertrudis producers because it will eventually allow the direct comparison of animals across countries. No breed Society can work in isolation and Namibian producers are first working at strengthening the linkages between herds to allow across breed EBVs.

The judicious use of bulls from the USA, Australia and South Africa in our Namibian herds will eventually create the required linkages to allow these across country analyses. The Namibian Santa Gertrudis Society are working with their International counterparts to make this happen.

FOR MORE INFORMATION DOWNLOAD:
Breedplan and Santa Gertrudis(ENGLISH)
SIZE: 968 KB
FORMAT: PDF

Breedplan en Santa Gertrudis(AFRIKAANS)
SIZE: 687 KB
FORMAT: PDF

BREEDPLAN WEBSITE

BREEDPLAN is a modern genetic evaluation system for beef cattle. It offers the potential to accelerate genetic progress, tighten up breeding operations, improve productivity and increase prices for cattle sold for breeding and slaughter.

BREEDPLAN has been implemented as the national beef recording scheme in Australia, New Zealand, Namibia, Thailand and the Philippines, and its use is also increasing in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Hungary, South America and South Africa.

BREEDPLAN uses the world's most advanced genetic evaluation system (based on Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) technology) to produce Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) of recorded cattle for a range of important production traits (eg. weight, carcase, fertility).

FOR MORE INFORMATION DOWNLOAD:
Breedplan General Introduction
SIZE: 103 KB
FORMAT: PDF

1. Introduction

At the outset let me congratulate those who have organised the Aldman Stockman School and LRF Symposium for their vision in having your industry address such a wide range of topics that impinge on how to ensure the profitability of your beef industry. Thank you to the organisers for inviting me to participate in such an important event.

My talk will discuss:

• How performance recording has developed to cover a balance of production traits;
• How modern performance programs balance individual traits to obtain a selection index or indexes;
• How selection indexes form the basis for genetic tools that can be used to maximise genetic progress in economic terms;
• How gene marker information is being used to improve estimated breeding values;
• Software for minimising the effects of genetic defects;
• The progress that is being made with multi-breed evaluations;
• Progress with across-country evaluations;
• Trends in how genetic evaluation services are being delivered;
• The challenge - how better performance recording systems can make beef more competitive internationally.

2. Traits Recorded

Initially beef cattle performance recording systems focussed mainly on weight gain. The rationale was simple:

• Farmers can easily record weight.
• Weight gain is moderately heritable, and
• Many cattle are sold by weight so heavier cattle make more money.

However, long term selection based mainly on weight gain can be detrimental to some other production traits such as calving ease.

Modern performance recording programs cover a wide range of production traits. For example, Table 2.1 shows the traits that are evaluated in the BREEDPLAN® genetic evaluation system.

FOR MORE INFORMATION DOWNLOAD:
INTERNATIONAL TRENDS IN BEEF CATTLE
SIZE: 1 MB
FORMAT: PDF