A decade of Sheep Genetics: what have we achieved?

Abstract

Sheep Genetics (SG) was established to deliver a national across flock genetic evaluation to the Australian sheep industry, including the LAMBPLAN system for terminal sire and maternal breeds, and a newly integrated single across-flock analysis for Merinos. Since its inception SG has continually made significant developments and updates to the evaluations and services it provides. These include the development of new traits, across breed analysis for maternal breeds, utilisation of genomic information, and implementation of single-step genomic methods in routine analyses. SG has also been involved in many extension activities to increase the quality of genetic evaluation data and in the use of Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) to increase genetic gain. This paper aims to describe the development of the genetic evaluation, adoption and extension achieved and some of the challenges for SG over the past decade (2007 to 2017).