Alf Collins' decades of work acknowledged by genetics community

The citation describes Mr Collins as one of the most innovative beef cattle breeders in the world.

In turn Mr Collins, based at Marlborough, paid tribute to the many people he said had contributed to his thirst for knowledge and understanding.

Two of the people from whom he sought information when he went looking for the best genomics in the world are also medal recipients.

“This is beyond my understanding or expectation to be honoured by such eminent and worthy scholars,” he said.

The Helen Newton Turner Medal, established in 1993, perpetuates the memory of an outstanding sheep geneticist, whose career with CSIRO was dedicated to research into the genetic improvement of sheep for wool production.

Mr Collins was introduced to CSIRO by his father from the late 1950s for short courses on management and genetics, and he said the family was “blessed” to have the Belmont research station on their doorstep.

“The take-home message is that inspirational scientists in my world communicated freely with outstanding managers of livestock and land,” he said. “They actually knew about cost of production, and the harsh blowtorch of economics and profit and loss.”

It’s a gap today that he says needs attention and nurturing.

“A common thread in most of these wonderful people (who assisted me) was an awareness of the burning need to search for commercially relevant traits on a low cost, high expectation level,” Mr Collins added. “Reproduction and survival has always been our CBV focus, at a low cost of production.”

Of the 50 top Brahman bulls measured on days to calving, Jap-ox dollar EBVs and live-ex dollar EBVs, Collins Belah Valley bulls make up 47 of those.

The medal citation said Mr Collins was a deep thinker about what cattle need to do in a tropical environment.

“He has never been afraid to try novel approaches or include new traits.

“His demonstration that it is possible to breed genetically fertile, productive and profitable tropically adaptable cattle is an inspiration.”

Mr Collins said his decades of work had been fun.

He was presented with the Helen Newton Turner Medal at the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics conference in Townsville on July 5.