293 ASAS-EAAP Talk: #Phenotypeisking

Abstract

Abstract The objective of this text is to describe the changing face of phenotypes collection for use in national genetic and genomic evaluations of dairy cattle and to offer possible new scenarios that may exist. Dairy cattle have been chosen as an exemplar, but some of the principles could be applied to other livestock species. National evaluations in many established countries have evolved over many decades into sophisticated layers of management, ownership and funding streams, but all have created large gains for farmers, dairy cows and consumers. Usually, milk recording data has been gathered for management purposes and passed the national evaluation centers freely in return for genetic evaluations that added value to the recording service. Conformation and functional phenotypes were often recorded by breed societies and sometimes evaluated by them. These long standing and established processes are becoming disrupted by the advent of genomic evaluation whereby limited and high-quality phenotypes can be used to train a SNP key that can subsequently be used to make genomic predictions for the rest of the industry. Larry Schaefer suggested that breeding company costs would greatly reduce, but did not suggest that the cost and effort of gathering phenotypes would increase. In the age of the low-cost genotype, where will the increasingly sophisticated and high-cost phenotypes come from? This is causing disruption in the industry, challenging existing structures, creating opportunities for new entrants with new technology, making phenotypes very valuable, altering the balance of power between industry players and farmers and offering genomic evaluations for traits previously thought too difficult or expensive to records. The problems with such disruption is that it can result in “cherry picking” by new entrants, thereby reducing the sustainability of the remaining services valued by farmers. The future is not what it used to be.