This is a subscriber-only article
The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has completed the September evaluation of bull proofs and, once again, genomic proofs have dropped down.
The April spring evaluation also recorded a genomic overestimation and a base change correction which caused much distress to AI companies at the time.
On average, genomic sires are back €15 but some individual sires have fallen much more – in some cases over €100 EBI units.
Popular individual sires like SEW, WLY, PHC have all seen significant falls in this evaluation compared to 12 months ago.
This, once again, goes to reinforce the need for farmers to use teams of sires rather than heavily depending on any one sire.
Checks and balances
A spokesperson for ICBF said: “Individual genomic sires continue to move up or down, some significantly. However, on average, genomic sires are still ahead of daughter-proven sires because of the four years of genetic gain between genomic and daughter-proven sires.
“We are confident in terms of the checks and balances that the proof run is correct. A new technical advisory group has been established to oversee development.”
When the ICBF was asked why individual sires can fall so much, it said: “Depending on the sire, effectively either the milk or fertility sub index is not performing as expected relative to herd contemporaries.”
The sire FR 4021 Ballinteskin Arnold is top of the list with an EBI of €290.
The board of the ICBF is set to meet on Thursday 7 September.
Details of new proofs are on the ICBF website.
The next evaluation is set for December but information from the current run will be used in ploughing catalogues etc.
SHARING OPTIONS: