Breed societies back Repronomics research work as wait for new announcement continues

Repronomics II is entering its fifth and final year and is yet to receive notification if it will continue beyond July next year.

Both Repronomics I and II have spanned nearly 11 years, during which major progress has been made to increase the accuracy of estimated breeding values and genomic breeding values, create new recordable traits and better understand trait heritability.

Dr David Johnston, principal research scientist for the animal genetics and breeding unit at UNE, has been the main lead behind the research work and has been meeting with Meat and Livestock Australia and its research partners to ensure a new phase can be funded.

"We will have to know before the end of the year because we have to mate all these cows," he said.

"There are all sorts of things happening in the background to get it to go ahead because the industry is saying this has to continue."

Brahman, Santa Gertrudis and Droughtmaster females in Repronomics II are run on Douglas Daly Research Farm, NT, and Spyglass Beef Research Facility at Basalt and Brian Pastures Research Facility, outside of Gayndah.

More breeds and even methane research could be a focus of a new project.

Droughtmaster Australia CEO Simon Gleeson said if the project was to cease now it would be detrimental to the Droughtmaster Australia and the breed.

"...because we are still in the phase of growing our Breedplan memberships to a point where we can become self-sustainable and educating our breeders on the benefits of collecting data to improve the overall composition of the breed and become more profitable," he said.

"This project is very important to us because it has allowed us to collect sufficient data to measure key traits in our breed and ultimately transition to Single Step, which is planned in the next few months.

"Without this project we wouldn't have had enough data to advance to Single Step because at this stage we don't have enough members contributing to Breedplan.

"This is changing though, we have recently changed our charging regime for Breedplan members and our breeders are now witnessing the benefits by utilising the data coming from the project and through workshops that we have recently held. This project has been critical to our breed development and educating our members on the value of using data in their businesses."

Santa Gertrudis general manager Chris Todd echoed those sentiments and said while the association did not back the original program in 2018, it was very supportive of it continuing.

"...and have agreed to participate in any new programs that are beneficial to the breed growing in Australia and ensuring benefit to our members," he said.

"It is has been of extreme value to comparing our breed to other Bos indicus breeds," he said.

"Through the hard work and heavy lifting of the six studs participating in this program, we have reached the important target of Single Step Status."

The Australian Brahman Breeders Association did not comment at the time of publication.

MLA has invested more than $13 million in Repronomic projects in collaboration with AGBU, UNE, Northern Territory Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade and Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.

When asked if the Repronomics projects would continue into a new phase, a MLA spokesperson said they were in the early stages of a potential new project towards the end of this year.

"Maintaining reference populations and overlaying the collection of new and emerging traits continues to be a key investment area with MLA's genetic portfolio.

"MLA supports research projects that align with MLA's strategic priorities, and where valuable, build upon the genetic resource that has been created through Repronomics and other reference populations."

A Department of Agriculture and Fisheries spokesperson said DAF remained supportive of improving genetics within the northern beef industry and was considering a number of approaches to ensure ongoing genetic gains.

"Many of the traits under genetic control that drive profitability are difficult to record in northern production systems," they said.

"This research is undertaking intensive recording of these traits, in particular female reproduction, and this data is underpinning the computation of genomic Breedplan EBVs for these traits.

"Importantly, the project is running the three breeds head-to-head thus allowing the future development of across-breed EBVs."

Over its decade long lifespan the Repronomics projects have helped establish new EBVs for hard to measure traits, improved EBV accuracies on young bulls from 30 per cent to 50pc for days to calving and increased the number of Brahman bulls being sold with a days to calving EBV.

Currently data is recorded on around 2000 females across the tropically adapted breeds and their progeny are also utilised for carcase measurements through the Northern BINs.

The Repronomics work also led to single-step genetic evaluations for the three breeds that experts say may not have ever happened.

Dr Johnston said tropical breeds hadn't seen the benefits of genomic selection like some southern breeds due to the difficulty in recording a large number of animals for the difficult traits.

"We don't need more weaning weights, more scrotals, it's those carcase, meat quality, female reproduction adaptation, the traits that are difficult to measure on farm that if we want to change those traits in selection, these genomic reference populations are really critical," he said.

"Previously there was only pockets of breeders that were doing Breedplan and recording but because we are using such a big cross section of the different breeds, that is now driving many many more animals to be available with EBVs, which gives commercial producers much more opportunity to find bulls that have EBVs and make selection decisions."

Key to the success of the project is the selection of sires.

The purchase of new bulls from public auctions or semen is crucial to ensure that popular sires, up and coming genetics or reputable bloodlines are gaining data in Breedplan.

Once the research females have had their first calves, they become eligible for the project's AI program.

Around half of the calves are born to AI sires and the other half to natural matings.

"What we hope for is the bulls we are using are as closely related to the bulls that are going to come up for sale in a couple of years time," Dr Johnston said.

"If we want to maximise those genomic accuracies or EBV accuracies with genomics we want them to be as closely related to the animals that we are recording. So in each of the breeds we are looking for, who is the dominant sires, who is the new kid on the block, who is the flavour of month and we then say, how do we get those genetics in Repronomics and record them?"

Some of the genetics they breed with are or closely related to bulls that sold for six figure price tags.

There may be industry pressure for those bulls to reflect their price tags with exceptional progeny but that isn't always the case.

Unlike other projects, Dr Johnston said, Repronomics doesn't ask for bull nominations and source the bulls they want.

"There can be push back," he said.

"People might not want to sell you semen because they are a bit concerned how they will perform.

"We don't want to upset anyone but often if people aren't providing semen then we might go buy a bull or a couple of bulls with those genetics because it's on behalf of the industry.

"... if they come out below average or worse than they thought there is a real trust that because it's been done by the research project, they know it's 100 per cent legitimate."

"People are now saying can I put my bull in the project? I've got semen and I'll donate it. They want to see how their bull performs under the strict recording regime we have."

Commercial and seedstock producers who may have never had any interactions with Breedplan before are now receiving GBVs on their animals just with a tail hair sample.

Dr Johnston said it then stimulated them to do more recording and actually start using Breedplan.

While GBVs make it easy to gain data on an animal, accuracies will be lost if breeders aren't imputing information into the Breedplan system.

The argument over paying for this input is already being asked, Dr Johnston said.

"If there is no data where animals have a phenotype and genotype then we can't get genomic accuracies through Breedplan," he said.

"Likewise, into the future, we have got very good genomic accuracy for birthweight but if we stop recording or someone doesn't record birthweights and take their genomics then those accuracy will decline so there is a need even in breeds like Angus that someone has to be doing the recording.

"The question the industry is faced with is who pays for it?

"There is people doing the heavy lifting that are doing the recording and others are certainly benefiting and that's really good from an industry perspective but in the cold, hard light of day if those breeders are paying for it you might argue they should be somehow benefitting from their efforts? As we move more and more into genomic selection those sort of questions are being asked more.

"If levy dollars are paying for it well people will say that will be good if there are mechanisms where the people who are somehow doing the recording are being renumerated...or the people who are just doing genomics might have to pay for the ability to do that."

How it is paid for and how the northern industry maintains a reference population to measure new traits like methane and disease resilience may form part of a new project, Dr Johnston said.

Repronomics II has busted the myth that reproduction is lowly heritable and hard to change.

By measuring component traits like age at puberty, lactation and estrous of a first calf cow, heritability can lift to level of 40 to 50 per cent.

"If you can measure them accurately with serial scanning, so we scan these heifers every four to six weeks and cows every month, if you can look at their ovaries and actually see what that cow is doing and not rely on just did she calve or not, then you are working with a much more heritable trait and we can make genetic change much faster."

With Repronomics contributing more than 1000 birthweight records each year, and other genetic research adding to the pool of data, real momentum is happening in changing northern attitudes towards adoption.

"It's always a challenge to get adoption and that hasn't gone away but I think there is momentum now building and there is an appetite for EBVs in our tropical breeds," Dr Johnston said.