Interbull - how it began and some achievements (original) (raw)
2005, Interbull Bulletin
The use of international genetic evaluations of dairy bulls has become a common practice today in almost all major dairy producing countries around the world. At this year s Interbull meeting in Uppsala we can celebrate 10 years of international genetic evaluations. Furthermore, it is 30 years since the first working group started to work on the issues that subsequently led to formation of Interbull, and it is 15 years ago that the Interbull Centre was established. So there are many milestones to celebrate at this occasion! As all these developments build on previous achievements it is of interest to have the history of Interbull and international genetic evaluations documented.
Related papers
Summary We can discribe 3 principal steps in the recent development of international genetic evaluation in beef cattle. At the beginnings of the 90's the first attempts were multi-countries genetic evaluation of close countries using a single model without country effect. In 1999 the Irish initiative named EUBEEVAL provided a Frame to study the best statistical model to compare breeding values of animals reared in different countries and to test the feasibility of this type of genetic evaluation. This initiative was integrate in the ICAR and Interbull development in 2004 (ICAR general assembly in Sousse Tunisia). The last two years was used to put the basement of a new Interbull service and to improve the quality of the data exchanges (specially the International identification of exchanged animals) and the genetic evaluation methodology.
Interbull developments, global genetic trends and role in the era of genomics
Interbull Bulletin, 2011
Effects of animal breeding have historically been boosted at certain times by important technical discoveries or theoretical developments. The globalization of cattle breeding has been possible due to the possibility of using frozen semen of individual bulls across the world. Which are the best bulls to be used got a boost by the development of the mixed-model procedures (BLUP) supported by enormously enhanced computer capacity. The development of MACE enabled the opportunity to evaluate practically all AI bulls across countries. And now we are in the midst of a technical break-through where technology developments including sequencing of the cattle genome combined with use of quantitative genetic methods form the basis for genomic selection. During the past 20 years an enormous development has taken place in the major dairy breeds. Interbull has played an important role for this development as facilitator through delivery of genetic evaluations to be used across countries, so that ...
Genotype by Environment Interactions in International Genetic Evaluations of Dairy Bulls
2000
SUMMARY For international genetic dairy evaluations different environments have been defined as country borders and the genetic component has been progeny tested bulls. The correlations estimated between the countries are affected by differences in trait definition, differences in genetic evaluation model and genotype-environment interactions. Also, genetic correlations estimated between countries can be affected by the amount of exchange of semen
The first international joint genetic evaluation between France, Ireland and United Kingdom for pure bred Limousin weaning weights offers the opportunity to review the Interbeef story and detail the different steps to achieve before implementing a common genetic evaluation for beef cattle. This study along with the previous EUBEEVAL works reveals the crucial need of identification of foreign animals in the different national databases, differences between countries with regards to data amount and structure, and also a lack of information to estimate maternal (co)variance components. Nevertheless, this objective approach taking into account country specificities provides a new powerful tool for the breeders to enlarge their breeding animal choice.
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