Genomics is not a belief system, it’s a technology that enables better insight into pedigree, and how that can impact eating quality.
That’s according to University of Adelaide Professor of animal breeding and genetics Wayne Pitchford, SA, who currently leads the Corriedale Eating Quality Genomics project.
Presenting at the 16th World Corriedale Congress in Bendigo recently, Professor Pitchford said by looking at DNA, you can predict what the breeding value of a particular ram will be.
And this can enable breeders to learn more about the genetics that impact lean meat yield and eating quality in their lambs, which is information that is impossible to evaluate in a live ram.
“The key performance indicator in Corriedale sheep is the weaning rate of lambs, and if you’re going to select for female reproductive rates, you’re going to make very little progress unless you use Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs), and eating quality is like this too,” Professor Pitchford said.
“You need to focus on the ram side as well as the ewe side.”
This is where University of Adelaide student Hannah Gordon comes in.
Ms Gordon is completing an Honours project titled ‘Genomic analysis of eating quality in Corriedale lambs’, under Professor Pitchford’s supervision, which aims to evaluate a range of Corriedale sires for their eating quality attributes, by assessing traits of their progeny.
The trial saw 212 lambs born to 150 ewes and 14 sires, with Corriedale breeders sponsoring their own rams to enter.
“We have collected data on a variety of traits relating to growth, wool, and carcase attributes; tissue samples were also taken from the lambs for genomic analysis,” Ms Gordon said.
“We adjusted the data for sex of the lamb, type of birth and rearing and sire. We did not account for effect of ewe, as ewe pedigree is not known, but the genomic data will give us ewe pedigree.”
The trial is running over three years, with the first drop of lambs hitting the ground in 2017, and Ms Gordon said the aim is to have 900 progeny evaluated for eating quality and other traits by the end.
All information collected on the lambs is being submitted to LambPlan to produce ASBVs for the sires involved in the trial.
The ewes and lambs are being hosted by Peter and Clare Blackwood, Evandale, Tasmania.
The project is being funded by Meat and Livestock Australia’s donor company, MLA Resource Flock, University of Adelaide, and the Performance Corriedale Group.