Filling the top three BPI places on the Holstein Proven podium are GEEMCEE, his full brother WRANGLER and the health traits specialist GOLDCREST.
GEEMCEE consolidated his claim as the number one Holstein sire in the breed with an impressive 40-point lift in his BPI rating placing him 30 points ahead of his nearest genetic rival. Improved fertility, type ratings, protein yield and cell count were the factors that contributed to his lift. This Man-O-Man son from a Shottle dam comes from the same cow family as the legendary JUDGE and was bred by Rengaw Holsteins of Tasmania.
A third full bother CHALLENGER also consolidated his April ABV showing the merit of bull selection based on genomic ratings and strength of pedigrees. WRANGLER and earns his Silver medal with a lift of 13 BPI points from his April rating. Like his brother, WRANGLER improved in his type rating and also protein production.
In the Bronze medal position is GOLDCREST, the total performance sire who continues to outperform many of his younger, more fancied rivals. GOLDCREST delivers solid ratings for production, feed efficiency and cell count and is the Number 1 HWI and number 2 TWI Australian bull.
It is a great testament to Australian Breeder’s that the top 3 spots on the daughter proven BPI all stand in Australia. In fact, 7 of the top 10 daughter BPI proven bulls are all Australian bred and all are available from Genetics Australia. The performance of the emerging genomic sires is also extremely exciting with a number now adding milking daughters and will soon appear on the daughter proven lists. PICOLA, ROYALMAN and ATLEY have been very popular genomic bulls and their early data demonstrates the value in the investment made into Australian genomics.
PICOLA is a son of the veteran DELSANTO, a bull that now with thousands of milking daughters still remains in the Top 1% BPI of available Holsteins. PICOLA was bred by the Hogg Family of Adlejama Holsteins of Biggara in Northern Victoria. He has 65 daughters in his production ABV and has improved significantly on his genomic rating. At 290 BPI he emerges as the best of the new bulls available and farmers that have used the bull already would be pleased they have daughters milking now or soon to enter their herd. ROYALMAN at 287 BPI is not far behind PICOLA with 19 early milking daughters and is around 30 BPI ahead of his genomic ratings.
ATLEY has consolidated his genomic proof with 105 milking daughters and daughters inspected to date suggest he will be a real type specialist.
Former number one genomic BPI Jersey sire, RACEWAY has consolidated his daughter proof with 122 daughters making him one of the most reliable first crop Jersey sires available. Like his Holstein counterparts, he has delivered on his genomic promise with solid ratings across the board, in particular udders and workability traits. Sons of RACEWAY will be entering the genomic team in the coming 12 months.