Beef Spectacular 2024: Results data invaluable for Liscombe Pools

Ms Bowman said she had entered the trial about four times now and had her most succesful year yet being awarded reserve champion carcase with a score of 432.5 points out of 550 for the team of five Angus steers.

The highest scoring carcase was awarded 92 points out of 110, had an MSA index of 63.62 and was marble score 2, making the Riverine Premium Beef brand.

It had a carcase weight of 372.5 kilograms and a dressing percentage of 55.2 per cent.

Out of the whole team three of the carcases made the Riverine Premium Beef brand, while two were branded under Teys Certified Premium Black Angus.

Ms Bowman said she used to enter a trial with the Australian National Field Days but when that ended joined the Beef Spectacular to continue to get the feedback.

"We don't see our end product, we do eat our own product but we don't get the feedback from it," she said.

"To get that and make sure you are doing the right thing, selecting the right bulls and produce something that is going to provide people with a good eating experience."

Ms Bowman has 400 breeders with the heifers joined to Wagyu bulls and the cows back to Angus bulls sourced from Rennylea.

The trial results are also beneficial for these decisions.

"I look to see what areas I can improve on what area I maybe have enough on and think about that when I'm selecting my bulls," she said.

Cattle are normally bred for the feedlot market, season dependant, grown out to 400kg to 500kg, so meat quality is a strong focus for Ms Bowman along with fertility and calving ease.

"We still get paid by the kilos and people get a bit carried away with biggest is the best and I don't believe that is the case," she said.

"There is a lot of cows out there that are way too big and way too expensive to maintain as far as the amount of grass they eat so I try and keep the mature cow weight down."

Ms Bowman said it was also important to have good all-round cattle

Going on from here, Ms Bowman said she wanted to continue to improve the marbling.

"It would be really good to see one day where we actually get paid for that and paid for eating quality rather than just paid per kilo," she said.

Ms Bowman added the Wagyu into the mix about ten years ago, partly for the calving ease and also as an extra avenue to sell into.

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