Summary
This conference proceedings paper presents a bioeconomic model developed to derive economic values for reproductive, growth, and carcass traits in two University of Florida beef cattle reference populations: a Purebred Brahman herd and a Multibreed Angus-Brahman herd. The work addresses well-established antagonistic genetic correlations among these trait categories, proposing an economic selection index as a framework for simultaneous multi-trait genetic improvement. The findings are intended to inform the construction of selection indices that appropriately weight economically relevant traits in subtropical and crossbreeding beef production contexts.
UK applicability
The study is specific to subtropical US beef production systems involving Brahman and Angus-Brahman genetics, which differ substantially from predominant UK beef breeds and temperate production environments. However, the methodological approach to bioeconomic modelling and multi-trait selection indices may offer transferable insights for UK breed societies and researchers developing economically weighted genetic improvement programmes.
Key measures
Economic values for fertility traits, growth traits, and carcass quality traits; genetic correlations between trait categories; profit-based breeding objective weights
Outcomes reported
The study derived economic values for reproduction, growth, and carcass quality traits in Purebred Brahman and Multibreed Angus-Brahman herds, using a bioeconomic model to support multi-trait genetic improvement under a profit-maximisation breeding objective.
Topic tags
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