The Angus Sire Benchmarking Program (ASBP) will see the entry of 33 new bulls, selected from over 60 nominations, to produce the Cohort 10 calves.
The Cohort 10 sire list, and previous cohorts sire lists, are available from Sire Benchmarking catalogue listing on angus.tech by CLICKING HERE
Additionally, to provide genetic linkages, Cohort 10 includes:
- A sire from the United States (V A R Legend 5019) which is included in a progeny test program undertaken by the American Angus Association, and
- Two sires from Cohort 9 of the ASBP (AJC L99 and Hardhat H708 Maimuru J51 M41)
The 33 bulls continue the high-performance status of ASBP sires with the group averaging in the top 5% for all Indexes. This is also coupled with genetic diversity and representative of the modern Australian Angus population which is important for the formation of an effective reference population.
Across the 10 Cohorts of the ASBP, there has now been 353 modern Angus bulls enter this industry leading research and development program.
The 2019 AI program to produce the Cohort 10 calves has recently commenced with 2,165 Angus females planned to be joined across 5 co-operator herds.
Each sire will be joined to an average of 62 Angus females with the aim to produce ~30-35 calves on average.
This is from a fixed time AI program with one round of AI, utilising Vetoquinol advice and products such as Cue-Mate devices.
The Angus Sire Benchmarking Program (ASBP) is a major R&D initiative of Angus Australia with support from Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and industry partners such as Vetoquinol, Rangers Valley Feedlot and John Dee Abattoir.
The objectives of the ASBP are:
- Generate progeny test data on modern Angus bulls, particularly for hard to measure traits such as feed efficiency, abattoir carcase measurement, meat quality and quantity attributes, immune competence & female reproduction.
- Generate data for the validation & refinement of Angus BREEDPLAN.
- Build a comprehensive reference population of phenotypes and genotypes on Australian Angus for the effective utilisation of genomic technologies.