EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
NALF has just completed its August board meeting in Denver at
the time of this writing . The August board meeting is typically centered around budgeting for the next fiscal year . Much of this year ’ s discussion was centered around positive items we can do as a breed in terms of marketing , promotion and research on our cattle , thanks to membership registrations and transfer levels in spite of last year ’ s rate increase . The financials look very positive heading into the fiscal year end and by the time you read this , the fiscal year will be completed .
As a result , the board has approved a $ 15,000 increase in our national commercial marketing program which incorporates new advertising outlets in addition to maintaining our venues such as Superior , Working Ranch and DV Auction .
Even more critical , the board has approved new research on our cattle in conjunction with Kansas State University . Through this research we will be attempting to put Limousin-sired calves , Lim-Flex ® and a control group of English-based feeder cattle on feed to capture intake and feed conversion data . This will not only include group closeout and feed performance data , but also a 60-day individual intake trial as well .
Our feed intake and conversion data is very dated . Your cattle have changed and improved dramatically the last five years and the board feels it is critical to document the Limousin advantage to the commercial industry with new valid research trials on our current cattle that can be used in a national advertising campaign .
We also plan to capture individual carcass data on the cattle to a logical slaughter end point to document the advantages of using both Limousin and Lim-Flex ® sires on an English-based commercial cowherd . This will hopefully document the following advantages we would expect to see at both the feedyard and packer segments of the beef industry
1 . Improved average daily gains , superior dry matter feed conversions resulting in cheaper cost of gains at the feedyard level with heterosis achieved in the terminal cross .
2 . Larger out-weights at harvest compared to their English-based counterparts resulting in additional rollback on breakevens while maintaining feed efficiency and superior dry matter conversions .
3 . Cattle that should have advantages at the packing house should still be able to grade 85 % Choice and above while maintaining a higher percentage of yield grade 1-3 cattle than their English counterparts . Additional NALF members have been sending actual kill data on customers they have sold bulls into their commercial cow / calf operators that are feeding their cattle out . Many of these kill sheets are coming back with group harvest date that are now grading 80-90 % Choice or higher with
12 by Mark Anderson Executive Director North American Limousin Foundation minimal yield grade 4 & 5 cattle . This will also be promoted and publicized over the next 12 months .
This year , NALF has had an increase of members who have enrolled in the LIMS whole herd reporting program . The increased interest in LIMS was spurred by the LIM Vision Cow Herd Project in partnership with Neogen . This collaborative effort with Neogen enables LIMS members to obtain more affordable 50K testing on their mature cowherds for the price of $ 24 per head versus the regular $ 55 retail price . To qualify , the member must submit DNA on 90 % of their mature cows enrolled in LIMS to take advantage of the discounted price and can also receive an additional $ 3 / head discount by submitting body condition scores and weights on their mature cows .
This lets a member genomically test the female portion of their herd , or their “ Cow Factory ,” at a more affordable price versus regular retail cost . This also qualifies that member to obtain that discounted rate every year on their replacement females to keep their cowherd current and achieve higher accuracy on their EPDs and expanded progeny equivalents acquired through genomic testing .
In the NALF herdbook , genomically enhanced testing has increased dramatically the past three years , but the bulk of this has been on bull sale offerings , A . I . sires and donor dams . To reach our full potential in an effort to increase expected mating accuracy , genotyping the female portion of our herd book is just as important . The increased progeny equivalents of 15-20 head on weight-trait EPDs that are achieved with the IGS cattle evaluation when also incorporating performance and pedigree data has been a game changer for the seedstock industry .
As you are now aware , IGS recently released the long awaited new EPD set with adjustments to growth-trait predictions referred to as “ Work Order 1 ”. The updated marker panel subsets were applied to growth trait prediction models in addition to adjusting the milk EPD that was previously hurting our high growth young sires along with the exclusion of genomic marker effect on the milk EPD . This has been adjusted beneficially to not be as detrimental to those young , high growth , low accuracy sires .
Over the last couple of years , the massive research undertaking has been going on to modernize the evaluation of growth traits ( Birth Weight , Weaning Weight , Yearling Weight and Milk ).
For a more detailed explanation , see the Performance Line article later in this issue . These changes were incorporated into the production run generated from IGS back on the week of August 17 .
Thanks to Wulf Cattle , NALF is also in the process of an exciting project to incorporate thousands of records of actual carcass data harvested through Wulf ’ s BeefBuilder ® program that will dramatically increase utilized sire accuracy of carcass trait data into the evaluation . Actual carcass trait data of cattle harvested to a logical slaughter endpoint is rare in seedstock evaluations .
• OCTOBER 2020 continued on page 14