New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts

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Invited paper

Application of new technologies in sheep breeding

H. T. Blair¹

D. J. Garrick^1,2

¹Institute of Veterinary
Animal and Biomedical Sciences
National Research Centre for Growth and Development
Massey University
Private Bag 11222
Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand

²Department of Animal Sciences
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1171
USA

Abstract   Genetically improved sheep make an important contribution to farmer profitability. New Zealand sheep breeders have a good track record in applying cost effective technologies to assist with the genetic improvement of their stock, with current annual rates of genetic gain in the New Zealand sheep industry likely to be between 0.1 and 0.2 genetic standard deviations. Several new technologies are discussed and their potential impact on improving genetic gain in the New Zealand sheep industry evaluated. While it might be possible to improve the rate of genetic gain to 0.5 genetic standard deviations by applying all available technologies, it is more likely that improved rates will only reach about 0.3 genetic standard deviations when cost effectiveness is taken into account.

Keywords   genetic improvement; technology; sheep

A07003; Online publication date 5 April 2007; Received 6 October 2006; accepted 1 March 2007

New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2007, Vol. 50: 89–102
0028–8233/07/5002–0085 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2007

PDF file of entire paper: Print-quality (327K) | screen-quality (262K)

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