SIL has written a number of articles for various rural publications. A regular column called GeneTalk appears in Country-Wide magazine and a number of topical articles have been published in various other Rural Media publications.
GeneTalk articles
GeneTalk is SIL's bimonthly column published in the Country-Wide magazine. Written for all ram buyers and ram breeders, GeneTalk focus's on principles in the assessment of genetic merit and on how to use genetic information for ram or bull selection.
Critics of modern selection systems sometimes cite single trait selection as leading to “problems”. This is irrelevant because commercial ram and bull breeders don’t select for just one trait.
Three simple concepts underpin modern genetic evaluation systems. The statistics used are justified and focussed on minimising bias in the estimates of genetic merit produced.
Some breeders argue for having selection indexes based on a standard set of BV traits for comparing genetic merit across flocks.
Animal breeding jargon makes things look complicated. But the essence of modern performance recording and genetic evaluation is simply to make fair comparisons.
When you genetically improve your flock or herd by using superior rams or bulls, you are likely to have to change management to take full advantage of the new genetics.
We hope you find these articles valuable. SIL welcomes feedback on them as well as suggestions for future topics. If you have any comments or suggestions you can contact SIL on 0800 silhelp (0800 745 435) or silhelp@sil.co.nz