AUSTRALIAN Wool Innovation has outlined the direction of a new sheep genetics program to be considered by its board later this year that will investigate the accuracy of early-life assessment of the genetic merit of sheep.

The proposed new Lifetime Productivity Project is based on feedback from the industry of moves toward collecting more information on individual animals at younger ages.

And while the project may draw criticism as being a replacement for AWIs Information Nucleus Flock investment, AWI says the need for improved lifetime productivity data has been around for decades, well before the nucleus flock, and requires data from larger numbers of sheep.

A planning team including up to nine organisations and research bodies with a history of sheep breeding research is drafting the project proposal to go to the AWI board for consideration in July or August. There will be a three to four-month industry consultation period before then to receive feedback on the proposal from growers groups, researchers and other stakeholders.

AWI head of on-farm R&D Jane Littlejohn said while breeding values were increasingly accepted by sheep breeders as an effective genetic evaluation tool, there were still issues to resolve to improve their acceptance.

We must focus on the reasons why more wool producers and stud breeders have not taken up these new technologies faster and whether it can be improved, she said.

Dr Littlejohn said the proposed project would examine issues around adoption by breeders of Australian Sheep Breeding Values including:

This project will significantly improve our understanding of the genetics of lifetime reproductive performance and its interaction with other traits such as growth and wool production, she said.

The progeny bred in the project would be evaluated over their lifetime for a range of wool, meat, disease and reproduction traits. DNA samples will be collected for genomic evaluation of predictors of lifetime performance.

Additionally, the availability of lifetime performance information, effects such as birth-rearing type and age-of-dam, pedigree and genomic information will contribute to the development of genomic-enhanced breeding values for lifetime traits.

Excerpt from:
AWI's new genetics

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