MERINO BREEDING VALUES - HOW DO THEY COMPARE?

摘要

There is a question in some sections of the Merino industry whether the methods used to describe the genetic value of a ram provide a true and unbiased representation of his genetic merit if the information is collected in the field, or if it does nottake into account the performance of his progeny. This paper compares Estimated Progeny Values calculated in the Central Test Sire Evaluation, based solely on the performance of his progeny, with Estimated Breeding Values calculated through the Merino Validation Project, based on the ram's own performance plus that of all of his recorded relatives. The data used was from rams evaluated in the South Australian Central Test Sire Evaluation over 3 drops. There are very good relationships between the estimated genetic values for all the hogget wool, carcass and health characteristics evaluated. As there was common data used in each of the databases, it would be expected that the correlations would be high. Nevertheless, the results demonstrate that the Merino industry can have confidence that genetic evaluation of a ram provides reliable information on his genetic merit whether the information is gathered from the performance of his progeny or his own performance together with that of his relatives.