Several important enhancements have been implemented for the December 2024 TransTasman Angus Cattle Evaluation (TACE) for Angus Australia and the New Zealand Angus Association. These enhancements improve the predictive ability of the EBVs published for Angus animals, ensuring that the pedigree, performance and genomic information being recorded by Angus breeders is used to its full potential.

These enhancements include:  

• Implementation of version 14 of the genomics pipeline. All genotypes used in the BREEDPLAN analysis are required to pass through a vigorous quality control process. The main upgrade is that sex and twin exceptions have now been automated. The usual checks (e.g. checking dates of birth for twins) still occur, but they now happen automatically at the point of running the pipeline. Only animals that were unable to be confirmed automatically will continue to be flagged for manual checking. Consequently, there may be a number of genotyped animals that were previously excluded from TACE that enter the analysis in December 2024 for the first time. Additionally, this upgrade means that Angus breeders can expect to see more genotypes being included automatically in the analysis (with no delay associated with manual checking), and less genotypes that need to be checked manually.
• Improved Alignment of Genomic and Pedigree relationships. Within the Single-Step BREEDPLAN model, both pedigree and genomic relationships are used to calculate EBVs. The impact of this adjustment is mainly seen in long term genetic trends, and results from the fact that the majority of genotyping has occurred in recent generations, with pedigree only information available in the pre-genomics era. The outcome is that observed genetic trends have generally increased, while the EBVs and Selection Indexes of the current generation are similar. The impact on breeding programs will be minimal, because the ranking of animals within cohorts will only see small changes, with correlations between EBVs with and without the adjustment typically greater than 0.97.
• Angus Australia launches new Selection Index. In response to the growing demand for Angus genetics in the dairy sector, Angus Australia has launched a new Angus on Dairy Research Selection Index. This index will assist dairy farmers in selecting Angus genetics for beef production from dairy herds. The growing interest in producing quality beef from dairy cattle highlights the importance of this new tool, designed to improve the genetic selection process for dairy beef production.

Angus breeders can expect to see some impact on EBVs, accuracy and selection index values as a result of these enhancements to TACE. Further information on these enhancements, including several short videos and a podcast episode, can also be found on the Angus Australia website here.