Teagasc genomic test breakthrough could save farmers €115m a year

GENOMIC cattle tests costing just €50 could lead to a dramatic quality upgrade for the Irish herd, following a Teagasc breakthrough worth a collective €115 million a year to Irish farmers.

Until now the DNA selection tests cost €150. Now, effectively, for around €15 extra farmers can add the DNA test to the existing €35 mandatory parentage test for every pedigree registered male calf.

This is the likely first step. In time, Teagasc say farmers will increasingly see the value of testing female calves also.

Teagasc research team leader Dr Donagh Berry said: “Genomic testing will be a routine part of farming in five years from now. Every Holstein friesian bull destined to be used as a stock bull will be routinely tested.

“For a few euro extra, the farmer can run a genomic test on any surplus replacement female calves and keep the best ones for himself. Farmers are bound to see the value of that. If the uptake is good, the cost will come down even further.”

With a saving of €100 per animal, the efficient new test could save €115m a year for the Irish herd of 1.15 million cattle. The subsequent weeding-out of inferior animals would dramatically upgrade the Irish herd. If successful, tests on other animals would inevitably follow.

Teagasc director of research Dr Frank O’Mara said: “We have been doing these tests for the last two years, primarily restricted to AI bulls in widespread use. That was the only previous way of improving the genetic make-up of the Irish herd.

“The cost of the test is now down to a level where farmers may choose to test individual bulls or individual heifer calves. This is a big step forward.

“We have come from making selection choices just using an animal’s performance and that of their sons and daughters.

“Now, using simple DNA tests from a hair sample, we can judge from the day an animal is born rather than having to wait until they are milking.

“The area of animal breeding is increasingly sophisticated now, and we in Ireland are among the best in the world at rolling out new scientific advances.”

This progress will allow dairy farmers to genomically test their breeding animals, facilitating more informed breeding decisions and increasing the genetic merit of their herds.

Genomic selection was launched in Ireland in 2009 by Dr Donagh Berry and Teagasc, with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation. The programme is led by Dr Pat Dillon.

Ireland was only the second country in the world, after the USA, to implement this technology in a dairy cattle breeding programme. Up to now the cost of the technology was prohibitively expensive for individual dairy farmers to implement in their own herds.

The new method uses lower cost technology with minimal compromise in accuracy. The approach is based on the knowledge that ‘chunks’ of DNA are inherited from an animal’s pedigree and if we know a few of the pieces of DNA in these chunks, the remaining DNA in the chunk can be estimated.

The accuracy of this estimation is on average 98% when the full DNA profile of at least the sire is also known, which is the recommendation laid down for the use of the technology. The results of this research are available to farmers via a new service launched by ICBF.

Farmers can obtain genomic proofs of their animals at a much reduced cost, which can result in better selection decisions and ultimately more profitability through greater genetic gain. The developed technology can also be easily applied to beef cattle when genomic selection becomes available.

This research was funded by Dairy Levy, Stimulus Research Fund, FP7, Teagasc, ICBF and the AI industry and carried out by Teagasc at the Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Centre, Moorepark in collaboration with other Teagasc centres.