The home of the largest progeny testing scheme in Europe

摘要

At first glance, dairy cow breeding in Germany seems fragmented. Each of the 16 federal states, or Lander, has its own herdbook, AI and milk recording organisations, and each AI stud runs its own progeny testing programme. Yet because of this country's co-operative nature, it collectively tests 885 young Holstein bulls each year - making it the largest scheme in Europe and the second largest in the world (see table 1).