Method R estimates of additive genetic, dominance genetic, and permanent environmental fraction of variance for yield and health traits of Holsteins

Abstract

Fractions of variance accounted for by additive genetic, dominance genetic, and permanent environmental effects for milk, fat, and protein yields; somatic cell score; and productive life were estimated from Holstein data used for national genetic evaluations. Contemporary group assignments were determined using the national procedure. Data included 1,973,317 milk and fat records for 812,659 cows, 1,019,421 protein records for 462,067 cows, 468,374 lactation average somatic cell score (SCS) records for 232,909 cows, and 735,256 cows with productive-life records. Variance components were estimated with the JAADOM program, which uses iteration on data and second-order Jacobi iteration for obtaining solutions to the mixed-model equations and Method R for estimation of variance components. Ten different random data subsets were used to estimate parameters for each trait. Estimated additive genetic, dominance genetic, and permanent environmental fractions of variance were 0.34, 0.05, and 0.10 for milk yield; 0.34, 0.05, and 0.11 for fat yield; 0.31, 0.05, and 0.10 for protein yield; and 0.17, 0.01, and 0.16 for lactation average SCS. Estimated additive genetic and dominance genetic fractions of variance were 0.12 and 0.06 for productive life. Mean empirical standard errors of additive genetic, dominance genetic, and permanent environmental variance fractions were 0.003, 0.006, and 0.006.