The first spring joining in a five year program to develop multi-breed EBVs will take place on six Department of Primary Industries' research stations from September.
Right now, in the thick of a dry winter, staff are out buying bulls that best represent the six breeds being studied - Angus, Hereford, Charolais, Shorthorn, Brahman and Wagyu - and project leaders are calling on industry to nominate suitable sires for an artificial insemination program.
The ambitious program whose time has been coming for decades is now being funded equally through DPI and the Meat and Livestock Australia donor company - which manages Federal and private seed money.
The projects' architects are DPI and its Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit in conjunction with University of New England at Armidale.
The five year project will concentrate on rearing progeny with the expectation of producing 3500 heifers from 2000 base cows after the fourth joining. Data will be collected and breeds appraised for their do-ability in different NSW climates, from sub-tropics to the New England.
Project leader Matias Suarez, DPI Armidale, said it was the first time such an ambitious project had been funded for temperate Australia, although the idea was mooted a decade prior.
Researchers will take a lead from the northern multi-breed project, which has genetically assessed Brahman, Santa Gertrudis and Droughtmaster for fertility to a far greater degree than in temperate breeds. The program will initially focus on reproductive traits like onset of puberty and post-partum anoestrus - ovarian activity after calving - in temperate breeds, a job which has been neglected over the past 20 years during which time artificial hormonal cycling drugs have dominated the stud industry.
"The synchronising fertility drugs used in artificial insemination and embryo transfer mask traits that we don't yet understand," said Mr Suarez. "There's no point in selecting for cows that need drugs to conceive early in life. We are hoping to prevent some of that and will supply the data behind these assumptions."
While funding is initially for five years team leaders have designed the second phase, which will take the project out to a full decade and that will focus on cross breeding, taking lessons from the poultry, pig and sheep protein sectors when it comes to true composite breeding.
"We see this as good for the commercial industry," said Mr Suarez. "The stud breeding enterprises are less affected. For the commercial cross-breeding operation it is important to know how Charolais combines with Angus or Shorthorn with Hereford. Right now we are going blind. There is no way to compare them objectively."
Mr Suarez said producers with multi-breed analysis could expect to select for traits like marbling in composite cows that suit specific country while terminal bulls would produce known progeny with consistency.
"But right now that dream is a punt," he said.
DPI farms in collaboration
Department of Primary Industries' research farms at Trangie, Camden, Tocal, Glen innes and Grafton are collaborating on the multi-breed EBV project to bring beef production on par with other, more competitive alternatives like chicken and pork.
"We need to fight against cheaper proteins," said project leader Matias Suarez.
"Producers need to work together and it doesn't matter what colour the coat."
Mr Suarez said while DPI research stations had, in the past, created great work on individual projects, they tended to work in isolation.
Through collaboration he predicted that all breeds and the beef industry as a whole would benefit from more accurate EBVs available for producers to make more informed decisions.
Fortunately for breeders, the skills and knowledge learned on-farm for steer and heifer weaner production will certainly be required in the future.
Those who best understand the process will be able to finesse their skills with more accurate EBVs across the key breeds. Mr Suarez said he expects room for trialing other breeds, like Limousin and Simmental, down the track.
Steers produced in the program will be assessed for growth, carcase and meat quality attributes and feed efficiency along with new traits like welfare and behaviour, which can be particularly important in a feed lot setting. Steers that makes friends easily might tend to eat more feed.
Ideally the project is expected to produce best-practice management and research stations will be made open for public inspection and learning while data gleaned from the project will be made available for collaborative studies.
