C H A R O L A I S

Dr. Clint Rusk, Executive Vice President

AICA and CCA to Conduct Joint Cattle Evaluation

Positive impact for both Associations

In years gone by, the American-International Charolais Association (AICA) and the Canadian Charolais Association (CCA) ran their national cattle evaluations together. For reasons unbeknownst to this author, the practice of running joint evaluations ceased at some point in time. However, in recent years the AICA and the CCA have once again begun discussions of merging their genetic data and running joint evaluations. When I joined the AICA in November of 2021, the AICA Fall Board Meetings were held in Louisville, KY. Craig Scott, General Manager of the CCA, and Doug Blair, consultant to the CCA came to Louisville to join in the discussion of reinstituting a joint genetic evaluation. As a newcomer, I thought this was a great idea to help promote international trade between Charolais breeders in Canada and the U.S.A. I naïvely thought we would begin joint runs in the Spring of 2022. Afterall, our geneticists at the time, Bill Bowman and Sally Northcutt, had overseen a test run of merged data from AICA and CCA in the summer of 2021. In their opinion, the results of the test run were very favorable. They were optimistic a joint genetic evaluation between the AICA and CCA would soon be initiated.

AICA and the CCA to discuss animals who were dual enrolled in both associations as well as an international identification system with standards set forth by the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR). Sean McGrath spent several weeks identifying Charolais cattle who were dual enrolled in AICA and CCA herdbooks. Mike Brooks developed a system to assign unique ICAR numbers to each Charolais animal registered in the AICA and the CCA. Meanwhile, Kelli Retallick-Riley and André Garcia realized they needed to change a portion of the system at AGI to accommodate the number of digits included in the ICAR numbers being generated by Mike Brooks. With good intentions to conduct a joint-run in early August, the discovery of Progressive Ataxia in the summer of 2022, changed the focus of the AICA and CCA for several months. With bull sale season quickly approaching in Canada and the U.S., the decision was made to delay a joint run until the Spring of 2023.

Thanks to the dedicated team of geneticists listed above, as well as Mike Brooks, I’m please to announce we are now very close to conducting a joint genetic evaluation between the AICA

In February and March of 2022, Bruce Mitchell, AICA legal counsel, and I spent several lengthy Zoom meetings with Craig Scott, General Manager of the CCA and Adrienne Waller, legal counsel for the CCA, going over details of an agreement between the AICA and the CCA to conduct joint genetic evaluations. During those meetings, I realized some members of the leadership team at CCA desired to have an additional test run prior to conducting a joint evaluation between the two Charolais associations. In the summer of 2022, while traveling in the UK with delegates to the World Charolais Congress, I had several opportunities to visit at length with Craig Scott and Darwin Rosso, former president of the CCA, who were very encouraging about the progress that had been made towards renewing a joint genetic evaluation between the AICA and the CCA.

In late June of 2022, Kelli Retallick-Riley and André Garcia from Angus Genetics Incorporated (AGI) initiated an e-mail exchange with Sean McGrath, genetic advisor to the CCA and Mike Brooks, computer programmer and developer for the and the CCA. In March, Kelli Retallick-Riley and André Garcia met with leaders of the AICA and the CCA to present their findings, including correlations from test runs conducted this spring. While changes will be witnessed by breeders, especially in those lines where genetics are being shared north and south of the border, the advantages of combining these datasets leads to more impactful genetic evaluations due to increased number of records. Once a joint national cattle evaluation is run between the AICA and the CCA, Charolais breeders and users of Charolais genetics will be able to make more informed breeding decisions across U.S. and Canadian cattle. Cattle marketed between the U.S. and Canada will have directly comparable Charolais EPDs under a joint evaluation. With the increase in trade between Canadian and U.S. Charolais breeders in recent months, I am optimistic that comparable Charolais EPDs under a joint evaluation will have a positive impact on the sale of Charolais genetics between Charolais breeders in Canada and the United States.