The American Angus Association, driven by technological advances and the push for producers to yield more efficient cattle, announced changes within the breed’s genetic evaluation. On July 7, 2017, the AAA became the first major breed association to implement the single-step expected progeny difference program into their weekly national cattle evaluation.
The single-step program exemplifies its name, simplifying the calculation within the national cattle evaluation, and integrates genotype, phenotype, pedigree, performance and pedigree data into one step, said Charlie Boyd, past chairman of the board of directors and an Angus breeder.
“When we applied the single-step program, a lot happened at once,” Boyd said. “We moved from the old system to the single-step system. We put 100,000 new genomic profiles into this system and the economic assumptions were updated for dollar-value indexes.”
The new program essentially “reshuffles the deck,” or reorganized some of the Angus breed’s genetics to give Angus breeders the most accurate, beneficial information they can, Boyd said.
Boyd served as chairman of the 16-member board that passed the vote on the single-step program. He said passing this motion was easy because it gives producers a better prediction earlier in the animal’s life.
“It had been in the works for a couple years now,” Boyd said. “We ran tests against the old system several times, just to make sure it was right before it was unveiled.”
Boyd said while the board was eager to pass the vote for the association to move to the single-step program, they have received mixed reviews from producers and breeders. The program is more likely to benefit producers with smaller herd-bases, rather than the old system, which benefitted larger producers, he added.
Boyd said the new program should add clarity to the EPDs of the younger generation of cattle, but does not necessarily compensate for highly productive, older cattle that have been producing quality offspring for years.
“It is like taking genomics on me versus my children,” Boyd said. “We’re always trying to make the next generation better, but that doesn’t mean we should discount the older generation.”
While there are many benefits to using a single-step system, breeders still have concerns about the fast-paced implementation of the data, he said.
“I believe that genomics allow us to make more rapid genetic improvement,” said Jarold Callahan, past president of the board of directors and current president of Express Ranches. “When single-step was released, we turned in a lot of data at once, so we did see some major changes and corrections. At the same time, they went to multiple trait correlations with regards to EPDs.”
Express Ranches is commonly known as the largest seedstock producer in the nation, Callahan said. Express sells cattle all over the country and are constantly trying to keep up with fluctuation within the market and what is most important to their customers when they come to purchase cattle, he added.
With single-step, scientists at Angus Genetics Inc. do not have to enter every single trait value, so they can put more emphasis on focused traits like weaning weight and yearling weight, Callahan said.
Dollar beef is the value many producers consider when making mating decisions or when purchasing a new animal. It combines multiple traits for feedlot and carcass merit based on dollars and cents. Callahan said he has some concerns with values like ribeye and carcass weight clouding the importance of ultrasound data like marbling and intramuscular fat when determining the value for dollar beef. He said he believes these values are still important when calculating the value and said this needed to be further looked into by the scientists at AGI.
Callahan and Boyd both said this program is so progressive, other breed associations like Hereford and Simmental have been on the fast-track to implementing it into their cattle evaluations. The American Hereford Association is set to switch over before the first of the year, Callahan said.
“Our emphasis is on sound, functional cattle that have reproductive efficiency and visual performance too,” said Doug Satree, Texas Angus breeder.
EPDs are a good tool to use sometimes, but for most breeders, phenotypical performance is the ultimate factor when making mating decisions, Satree and Callahan said.
“[EPDs] are just a part and a piece of the puzzle when making your selections,” Satree said.
Satree said he has been in the Angus business since the early 1990s and his main goal is to stay in business. In order to stay in business, producers are faced with the challenge of following the shifting trends of the market and of the consumers, he added.
Satree said he is worried because science is never exact. Mistakes are made constantly and science is always improving and changing. Every breeder in the country raises their cattle differently and the association has to take this into consideration, he added.
“American Angus Association finally updated the core sire group, and that’s why there was such a big change for some cattle and caused such a big swing,” Satree said.
The core sire group is a group of 20 or more top sires within the Angus breed, Satree said. This group sets the standard to which all the cattle today are tested against and compared to, he added.
The association had not updated the core sire group since 1987, Satree said. Switching to the single-step process might not have caused such uproar if they had updated this group more often throughout the years, he added.
“Although this system is new, it will be a while until it is perfected,” Satree said.
Satree said updating the core sire group more often, along with using the single-step process, could be good for the Angus breed if the association can educate the producers about the program, and keep making improvements in a more timely fashion than they have in the past.
“We continue to utilize the information from the American Angus Association and continue to look at EPDs when we make our matings,” Callahan said. “I think as time goes on and there is more phenotypic along with genotypic data put into the system. The concerns that I have will, hopefully, diminish over time.”