GENETICS Australia Co-operative (GA) is claiming the bragging rights for its progeny test program following the latest release of Australian dairy bull proofs.
The August 2009 Australian Breeding Values (ABVs) show the top bull in each of the major breeds have all graduated through GA programs.
But it is their Holsteins team that has really kicked goals with GA producing five of the top ten Holstein bulls including the new number one sire Orana in the August proofs.
ABVs provide an objective measure of the genetic merit of dairy sires for a range of important traits including production, workability, health and physical traits and allow farmers to compare individual sires against each other and against the current breed average.
ABVs are produced independently of commercial interests by the Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme (ADHIS) which is partially funded by dairy farmers through their Dairy Australia levies.
Genetics Australia chief executive Dr Ray Johnson said the new number one Holstein, Orana, was the stand out in these latest proofs after gaining a massive 14 points on Australian Profit Ranking (APR) since April 2009.
Goldsmith (GA), Jocko (Agrigene), Altacolin (21st Century Genetics) and Faraway (GA) fill the other places for the top five Holstein sires.
The latest release also shows that GA has held down the top spot for Jerseys with VALERIAN and the Red Breeds with ARBBOBDOWN, while their Illawarra sire REDVIKING also clearly topped that breed giving GA top position across these four breeds for just the second time.
Michelle Axford from ADHIS said the updated ABVs had now been incorporated into Selectabull, the free sire selection tool recently launched on the ADHIS website.
Selectabull allows users to define their breeding objectives and then quickly and easily identify suitable sires matched to those goals.
