Brahman BIN opens eyes to data benefits

The project will enable DNA information to be incorporated into estimated breeding values (EBVs).

The latest round of findings from the Brahman Beef Information Nucleus (BIN) was presented last week at a field day at Banana Station, Banana.

"This project was set up because we needed to verify that DNA data does work," ABBA treasurer Brett Coombe told the 50-strong crowd.

"Nowhere else in the world do they have this and it gives us an opportunity to export our genetics."

What is clear is that the days of selecting bulls purely on their physical attributes are long gone, and EBVs - validated by this project - are essential.

"The take-home message is you don't know if you don't record," Mr Coombe said.

While the project has verified the accuracy of EBVs, it has also thrown up some interesting results.

"If you want to improve weight and rump fat, you need to record both, as one won't give you the other," he said.

Tests were carried out for meat colour, cooking loss, shear force (how much force it takes to cut through a piece of meat), the intramuscular fat percentage (marbling), Brahman percentage and gene markers for shear force.

There was also no correlation between hump height and shear force.

"It's good data to take to MSA. We collected this in the BIN and we ask them if we are getting hammered here or not," Mr Corbet said.

What the data did show was a significant sire differences across the full range of steer traits.

"The EBVs provided an accurate description of the differences in progeny performance," Mr Corbet said.

"The challenge with reproduction is there is nothing you can tell by looking at a bull that will predict fertility in his females," he said.

For a heifer, reproduction is all about becoming pubertal, conceiving as a maiden, holding the pregnancy, having a live calf born and then weaning that calf.

"But the genes that do this are not the same when the female is doing all of this while lactating," Dr Johnston said.

What the BIN found was that there were some bulls that were good for female progeny that conceived and had a calf as a maiden, but were not good once those females had to get back in calf while lactating.

The data collected now gives a far more detailed picture.

"We can now say this bull has daughters with early puberty; this one has early days to calving and this one has higher maiden pregnancy; this one has good wet rebreed."

Ovarian scanning has been used to record this important female reproduction data and getting the rebreed information was critical.

The project found there is not a strong correlation between fat depth and fertility, that is, bulls that have the fattest steers will not necessarily have the most fertile daughters.

"There is a small heifer here that has had three calves from three pregnancies and they are big calves. She is putting it all into the calves," Mr Williams said.

The project will wrap up in mid-2017 with pregnancy tests for the third round of heifers, and the message is that producers need to start recording at home.

Dr Johnston said genomics was emerging as an early predictor tool, but it did not explain all the genetic variation that existed in a trait.

"We need to do much more recording to get the genomics working better, not the other way around. I think a lot of people thought it would mean the end of record keeping," he said.