The Promise of Genomics for Beef Improvement

Abstract

Long before genomics found its way into livestock breeding, most of the excitement pertaining to research into livestock improvement via selection involved developments in the BLUP mixed model equations, methods to construct the inverse of the pedigree relationship matrix recursively (Henderson, 1976; Quaas, 1988), parameter estimation and development of new, measurable traits of economic importance. In particular for several decades (1970’s through the early 2000’s), lots of resources were invested in finding the most useful evaluation model for various traits. Since the American Simmental Association published the first sire summary in 1971, the use of pedigree and phenotypic information has been the major contributing factor to the large amount of genetic progress in beef industry.