Figures matter for Dowerin breeder

Mr Jones, who runs the Ejanding Merino stud at Dowerin, spoke about his experience with ASBVs' at this year's Sheep Updates conference.

Since adopting the measurement process, Mr Jones says he has more confidence in the breeding of his rams and, has the figures to back it up and show his clients.

"Adoption of ASBVs has been slow to gain momentum with many in the stud industry reluctant to take up the challenge," he said.

"There is widespread misunderstanding of the concepts involved and the failure to correct this is shared by all of us in the industry."

At Sheep Updates, Mr Jones said breeding objectives and outcomes are personalised things, and this hasn't been communicated to those sitting on the fence.

"Indeed there are many who think that adopting ASBVs necessitates a change in direction or objective," he said.

"Extending this message and increasing the understanding and uptake of ASBVs to penetrate over 80 per cent of ram-producing flocks is a challenge.

"This must be faced or the industry benefits from genetic research will be slowed dramatically."

Mr Jones has come across a number of challenges since he took over the family mixed farming buisness in 1994.

Cropping between 3500 and 4000 hectares annually mainly to cereals and between 3500 and 5000 Merino ewes are mated each year at that farm.

Progeny are destined either for self replacement, over the hook sales or ram sales.

Making the change firstly to Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs), Mr Jones said he was confident with their new approach and said it was taking them in the right direction.

EBVs made it easier to present data to clients to assist them to select the best animals.

"We had started testing rams prior to sale and supplying as current as possible raw wool figures and body weights along with yearling data," he said

"This solved the perception that the information we were presenting was innacurate, outdated, or misleading and was quickly adopted by our clients."

Mr Jones used EBVs for two years before changing over to ASBVs.

He said using EBVs were hard to explain to existing clients in terms of what they were and why the stud was using them.

"This proved more difficult than anticipated even though our clients are mainly Wheatbelt-based," he said.

"They probably wouldn't consider a wheat variety without a trial indicating performance as a percentage above or below an existing variety."

Then ASBVs appeared and Mr Jones decided to embrace the across-flock technology.

"As our linkages were already okay and we were confident with EBVs - our sire evaluations were adding accuracy to our selections within flock and from outside," he said.

"We were using ASBVs in conjunction with visual assessment to select sires from inside our flock and to help us identify potential sires to use from outside.

"We have made significant progress in our breeding objectives, which have been updated over time.

"We now include traits such as increasing muscle and fat, lowering breech wrinkle and a reduced emphasis on micron reduction."

For Mr Jones, although using ASBVs is not new technology, education seems to be the key for both for breeder and clients.

Industry has recognised that across the board the adoption of ASBVs has been slow to gain momentum.

Mr Jones said there has been widespread misunderstanding of the concepts involved.

"Genetic challenges for us in the future lie with research and its extension for the more difficult to measure traits," he said.

"ASBVs are a great tool for within flock and good for across flock analysis.

"Given our time over again we would have worked harder to submit historical data as we had better linkages than we indicated to MerinoSelect."

Mr Jones said most starting flocks would be in the same boat, but will set the standard at their farmgate.

"We certainly set the bar higher for accuracy of traits when evaluating potential sires to import," he said.