Electronics in animal breeding

Abstract

Two of the major steps in animal breeding programmes are (i) estimation of breeding values for a defined selection objective (such as milk production or carcass lean content), and (ii) design of optimum breeding programmes, including proportion of animals selected as parents, population size etc. Advances in electronics, and particularly in computer technology, have had a major Impact on these procedures in a number of ways. In this paper we aim to highlight four of these.The preferred method of estimating breeding values is universally recognised to be BLUP (Best Linear Unbiased Prediction). BLUP is superior to classical procedures, such as contemporary comparison, for several reasons. The most important is that it is more accurate in separating differences between animals which are attributable to genetic rather than environmental factors. BLUP was first proposed by Henderson in 1949 but the first BLUP evaluation was not implemented until 1970 (Henderson, 1987). This delay is almost entirely attributable to inadequate computing facilities and technology at that time, since a BLUP evaluation system requires a large number of equations to be stored and solved.