engleski

Participation of Croatia in Interbull testrun for production traits in Holstein and Simmental breeds

International Bull Evaluation Service (Interbull) is a non-profit organization responsible to combine bulls breeding values (BVs) from the member countries to generate rankings of bulls in each country using the method known as Multiple (-trait) Across Country Evaluation (MACE). Genetic correlations across country are needed to estimate international bulls BVs as an indicator of the magnitude of genotype by environment interactions. The objective of this study was to calculate across country genetic correlations of production traits (milk, fat, and protein yield) for Holstein and Simmental bulls. The Interbull uses genetic correlations and international bull relationship matrix which combines with the bulls’ evaluation data from 32 member countries. Results are BVs of all bulls in the evaluation on the country respective scale. Genetic correlations between Croatia and other countries, compared well with those amongst the other countries. Genetic correlations for yield traits were in range from 0.76 to 0.87 in both breeds. Furthermore, BVs were available for all bulls in the evaluation. BVs for production traits for 556 Holstein and 692 Simmental bulls with Croatian origin have been sent to the Interbull. In return, Croatia received results for 137, 258 Holstein and 29, 670 Simmental bulls from all countries participating in evaluation, expressed on the Croatian scale. Trend validation tests were successful for all traits and breeds. Croatia can now participate in routine Interbull evaluations to obtain MACE BVs.

Interbull; MACE; production traits; correlations; breeding values

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