By: Devan Funk, Genetic Development Manager
The January 2009 Genetic Sire Evaluations mark the first time that genomic data is included. Accelerated Genetics invested heavily to ensure that all active Holstein and Jersey sires were genotyped. Unfortunately, not all sires have their genomic information utilized, even though a particular sire had been genotyped. The current daughter information that was available for the January run was unable to be combined with the genomic data in time for the release. Because of this, sires could have one of three different types of evaluations:
a) Genomic evaluation combining genotype data with August daughter evaluations.
b) Traditional U.S. evaluation using current daughter information and no genotype data.
c) MACE evaluation using current U.S. daughter evaluations and other country's evaluations and no genotype data.
The evaluation with the highest Reliability is the one deemed as a sire's official evaluation. A sire's information can be a combination of both Genomic and Traditional PTAs for either production and health data or type data. His Reliability for yield traits determines which evaluation is official for the production and health data. A sire's Reliability for type determines which evaluation is official for PTAT data, which includes all linear traits and composites. The folks at AIPL assure us that by April, all genotyped sires will have official Genomic evaluations.
Even with the complex sire run, Accelerated Genetics has many highlights in all the new PACE graduates and their ability to dominate the lineup. Many of the new graduates are breed leading sires for Net Merit, Type, Udder Composite and many if not, all major traits of interest. Dominating the NM$ list are five new Oman sons. They provide high production with strong components, terrific health traits, solid functional type and unbelievable calving traits.
014HO04929 Man-O-Man is Accelerated Genetics' highest ranked Oman son for NM$ and TPI. His dam is a VG-89 Aaron daughter. Man-O-Man has the total package of production, type, health, and calving ease. All of his evaluations do include genomic information. Man-O-Man is alive, but unfortunately supply is limited.
Oman son
014HO04876 Paxton is an exceptional health trait sire being +2.9 DPR, +2.69 SCS and +5.9 PL. His dam is an EX-93-3E Rudolph daughter. His linear shows his daughters to be tall and strong with sloped rumps and well above average on feet and legs.
014HO04956 Dotson is extremely high in NM$ and production traits. This Oman son comes from and EX-92-2E Durham dam and his grandam is an EX-91 Storm daughter. Dotson daughters are tall, strong, wide cows with dairyness. They also have extremely good feet with wide udders and correct teat placement. At +2394 PTAM, +74 PTAF and +72 PTAP, those producers concerned with keeping the bulk tank full will want to check out Dotson.
014HO04916 Jake is another Oman son. Jake's dam is an EX-90 BW Marshall daughter. At +96 PTAF, Jake is Accelerated Genetics' highest sire for fat. He is a high type Oman son at +2.00 PTAT, +1.93 UDC and +2.44 FLC. Jake daughters are tall and strong with exceptional feet and legs. They have really well attached udders. Also he is a good choice for heifers as Jake is 6% on SCE.
014HO04924 Kramer is our final graduate for our Oman sons. His dam is a VG-86 Hershel daughter. At +3.54 FLC Kramer is one of Accelerated Genetics' best at improving feet and legs. He is another great choice for heifers having a SCE of 6%.
Palmcrest Monument-ET, 014HO04784, is the highest new release graduate for type. At +3.41 PTAT, +3.26 UDC and +3.74 FLC, he is certainly a breed leader in all type categories. Sired by Morty and from a VG-89 Durham dam, Monument makes very correct daughters. In general, his daughters are very tall, strong with deep rib, breed leading feet and legs and flawless udders, especially in they're fore attachment and rear udders.
Another incredible type improver is newly released
014HO04878 Kalahari. He is a Finley son from an EX-91-2E Rubytom daughter. At +2.87 PTAT and +3.24 UDC, Kalahari should surely grab the attention of most breeders looking for improved type and udders. He also improves fat nicely at +56 PTAF.
Another high type Finley son that is new for January is
014HO04851 Clyde. Clyde excels in making big, strong, wide-rumped cows with exceptional feet and legs. 014HO04953 Rod is another high type sire coming in at +3.31 PTAT. His pedigree shows him to be a Titanic x BW Marshall x Patron x Roebuck. His daughters have udders with deep creases, smooth fore udders and extremely high, wide rear udders. He is also a solid production sire at +1361 PTAM and +53 PTAF.
A pair of fine Champion sons strengthens this outstanding group of new PACE graduates. First is
014HO04766 Champ. At +2.31 PTAT and +2.22 UDC, he delivers outstanding type with solid production numbers coming in at +1838 PTAM. His daughters are tall, angular with sloped rumps and terrific udders. In fact, Champ is better than +1.50 on all udder linear traits. The second Champion son is
014HO04816 Stellar, a superb production sire at +2232 PTAM. Stellar's pedigree spells milk. His sire stack includes Champion x BW Marshall x Aaron. Both dam and grandam are Very Good with loads of production. Stellar daughters are very tall, extremely deep in their rib with very angular frames, sloped rumps with deep udder clefts and close teat placement. He also is 6% for SCE.
A calving ease and health trait specialist can be found in
014HO04542 Major. At +461 NM$, his daughters are sure to be the profitable kind. His daughters are medium-sized dairy cows with shapely udders. Much is the same with 014HO04883 Kersage, a calving ease specialist with +3.1 PL and +419 NM$. Kersage has a flawless linear pattern.
New from our Alliance partners is
210HO00107 Fibrax. He is sired by the Italian Patron son, Step, and his dam is a Tugalo daughter. Look to Fibrax for improved components, solid feet and legs and shallow, well-attached udders. For the show ring kind, look to
202HO00258 Denton. Extremely tall and deep ribbed daughters are the trademark for Denton. He also boasts a +3.71 PTAT and a +3.27 UDC.
Breeders of Red and White Holsteins have two new sires to choose from.
014HO04625 Topeka-P-Red is a Polled Red and White Paradox son that is +1365 PTAM, +3.7 PL, 8% SCE and +1.53 UDC. A new Red Carrier sire is
199HO00112 Rubentot. He comes from Italy. He is sired by B&W sire Merchant and from an Excellent Rubens daughter. He is +1.55 UDC and +2.30 FLC.
In the Jersey evaluations, two new sires lead our NM$ rankings.
014JE00472 Alexander is our highest Jersey sire for NM$ at +569. Alexander is sired by the Danish bull, Artist. His dam is a VG-88% Bold and his grandam is an EX-93% Berretta, both with over 1300 F. At +83 PTAF, Alexander stands tall among Jersey bulls for improved fat. He is among the top ten for fat. He has a very good Reliability for a new sire at 77%R. And his proof does not contain genotype data yet, which will improve his reliability. Alexander's JPI is +270, which will rank him 4th or higher among all active Jerseys.
Also new in Jerseys is
014JE00473 Louie. He is sired by another Danish sire Impuls and is from an EX-91% Khan. At +70 PTAF, Louie excels in components and is among the top active sires for JPI at +228, good for top 20 in the breed.
New to the marketing lineup, is the addition of 17 GeneForce bulls. These are younger bulls without milking progeny but have a genomic evaluation. In general, most of these sires have completed progeny test and would normally be awaiting official proofs. However, now with the genotyping technology, these sires can have 70% R evaluations for nearly all traits. Included are sons by Shottle, Goldwyn, Potter, Oman, Marion, Die-Hard, Bolton, Mac, Boliver, Buckeye and Allegro.
One last highlight is
014HO03831 Marion. Now with over 2600 milking offspring and over 600 classified daughters, Marion's proof has never looked better. This 99% R sire is +2809 PTAM, +410 NM$ and +1.83 PTAT. He is far and away the highest 99% R bull for milk production. At 8 years of age, Marion is still producing semen, but he's not getting any younger. Take advantage of this high reliable, proven milk source while you can, you're milk check will grow by leaps and bounds in a few years.
April evaluations are not far away. Genotype information and current genomic evaluations should be included for all sires. We look forward to even higher reliable sires with all updated pieces of information utilized.