Genetic Evaluation Enters A New Era

Five cattle breed organizations – Brangus, Gelbvieh, Limousin, Red Angus and Salers – have formed a new company that will combine and create one National Cattle Evaluation for the five breeds and provide one suite of EPDS for all members of the venture. Commercial customers no longer will have to learn the EPD bases for these breeds, as they’ll be reported on a similar base and scale.

While most of these breeds developed their own multi-breed evaluations in order evaluate hybrid or composite cattle, this joining of databases and evaluation will greatly expand the quality of information being produced. There will now be two dominant national cattle evaluations in terms of database size – this new venture called Performance Registry Services, and the American Angus Association.

By combining efforts and resources, this joint venture will offer the additional strength of whole-herd-reporting capabilities, and has aggressive plans for developing multi-breed, decision-support software to allow commercial customers to make better genetic selections. It?s exciting to see this type of cooperation, which will revolutionize national cattle evaluations by providing better and more accurate data for commercial cattlemen and seedstock producers alike.

In no way is this joint venture a consolidation of these breeds, which will remain fiercely competitive. It just gives their breeders the ability to compete on an even footing, and commercial cattlemen to evaluate the cattle in similar way.

Other breeds are expected to join as things progress. As one breeder remarked to me: you either have access to the most technically sophisticated and largest genetic evaluations in the world or you get left behind.

Cooperating to better compete is a novel concept in any field. But in the purebred business, it’s revolutionary!

For more on this story, Click Here to read Wes Ishmael’s in-depth report in the upcoming November issue of BEEF magazine.

— Troy Marshall