Effects of a breeding scheme combined by genomic pre-selection and progeny testing on annual genetic gain in a dairy cattle population

Abstract

The effectiveness of the incorporation of genomic pre-selection into dairy cattle progeny testing (GS-PT) was compared with that of progeny testing (PT) where the fraction of dam to breed bull (DB) selected was 0.01. When the fraction of sires to breed bulls (SB) selected without being progeny tested to produce young bulls (YB) in the next generation was 0.2, the annual genetic gain from GS-PT was 13% to 43% greater when h2=0.3 and 16% to 53% greater when h2=0.1 compared with that from PT. Given h2=0.3, a selection accuracy of 0.8 for both YB and DB, and selected fractions of 0.117 for YB and 0.04 for DB, GS-PT produced 40% to 43% greater annual genetic gain than PT. Given h2=0.1, a selection accuracy of 0.6 for both YB and DB, and selected fractions of 0.117 for YB and 0.04 for DB, annual genetic gain from GS-PT was 48% to 53% greater than that from PT. When h2=0.3, progeny testing capacity had little effect on annual genetic gain from GS-PT. However, when h2=0.1, annual genetic gain from GS-PT increased with increasing progeny testing capacity. © 2014 Japanese Society of Animal Science.