GENETIC EVALUATION:
A TEAM SPORT By by Jackie Atkins, in collaboration with Randie Culbertson and Wade Shafer for the American Simmental Association On a nearly daily basis I witness the tug and pull in our family dynamics between individuals competing directly and the group working collaboratively. Nearly every time my kids are competing with each other to put their pjs on first, pack their lunch first, or run to the gate first, they are pushing and shoving, and only care about themselves at the expense of others. When we flip this conversation into a team sport by asking, “How fast can we all be ready for bed?” this instantly changes the dynamics. Instead of elbowing each other out of the way, when our family is the team, the older kids help the younger ones get toothpaste on their toothbrushes, find clean pjs, comb hair, and work together toward a common good in a spirit of camaraderie. Not only is there less fighting in the family when we have a team goal, but everyone finishes faster as we aren’t wasting time fighting over silly things like who touched the toothpaste first. I see this play out in breed association politics as well. If a breed association’s mentality is to make their association number one, they will start elbowing, pushing, and shoving to “win.” When the common good is to provide tools for the commercial cattle industry, this completely changes the dynamics. Now the breed associations can collaborate and work together toward helping the commercial cattle industry have the most accurate tools at their disposal. I feel so fortunate to work with a collective of teamoriented breed associations through International Genetic Solutions (IGS). It is invigorating to join forces with the staff of the various breed associations and problem-solve together. This summer we worked on a 86
Utah Cattleman Seedstock Edition
project that highlighted these benefits. We had one-on-one meetings with each association in IGS and went through the individual data entering into the genetic evaluation. It was a great opportunity to see how each association is adding to the IGS evaluation and also how each association is benefiting from the IGS collective. We looked through a wide swath of data points to review contributions made by each breed organization. The American Simmental Association (ASA) has approximately 150,000 genotyped animals and an above-average number of females and terminal cattle genotyped. In females born after 2010 with a Stayability record (n = 126,003), the members of the ASA have genotyped over 27 percent of those cows compared to the IGS average of 16 percent Similarly, if we look at the number of terminal calves born since 2010, the ASA contributed 30,744 carcass records, of which 34 percent were genotyped. This is well above the IGS average of 10 percent of the terminal cattle ...CONTINUED ON PAGE 88
VOLUME 8
•
FEBRUARY 2022
