In 2020, Victorian cattle producer Amelia 'Milly' Durham joined MLA's 'Genomics for commercial Angus' Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) to increase her herd's productivity and rate of genetic progress.
The project looks into the usefulness of a genomic tool for commercial Angus producers and whether genomic data could be used to create a greater return on investment.
Five years in, Milly shares what benefits it's bringing to her production and why she'll continue to use the genomic tool known as Angus HeiferSELECT beyond her involvement in the PDS.
The decision to take on the tool
The Durham/Mackinnon family run a small seed cropping operation alongside 350 self-replacing Angus breeders on a 520ha block in north-east Victoria near Tintaldra.
Milly acts as livestock manager with her husband Ed Durham, while her parents, Al and Jo Mackinnon, continue to hold ownership.
"We're all part of the local Better Beef group, which is where we heard about the PDS," Milly said.
"I'm someone who's really into technological innovation, so I was quite interested in learning more about what genetic tools could contribute to our business.
"We'd been heavily utilising AI (artificial insemination) at the time as well, and we saw the program as an opportunity to get better insight into where our herd was ranking in terms of genetics and what key traits we could improve to help meet our breeding objectives."
Analysing and utilising the data
According to Milly, the family's current breeding objectives are focused on improving calving ease and growth rates, improving carcase merit, and increasing herd productivity.
"When we got the genomic data back on our heifers that first year, our goal was to simply see what we had; our plan was to observe and start developing a record of our reproductive performance annually," she said.
"Every year, we'll test our entire heifer drop – regardless of what they look like – to give ourselves a good benchmark.
"We've been seeing a gradual change and improvement on traits we've been targeting, but since one of our key goals at the moment is increasing herd numbers, we prioritise fertility as our main culling mechanism, as well as temperament and soundness."
Looking to the future
Moving forward, Milly said the family plans to continue using the tool beyond their PDS involvement.
"These tools are becoming increasingly useful in improving business productivity and profitability, and it's showing with how producers are responding to them," she said.
"While we haven't been using the tool to its full potential, we've still received enough value out of raw data collecting that there's a desire to progress.
"It's one of those things that plays a role in not only short-term decision making, but medium and long-term as well."
Milly said it's been easy to incorporate the tool into production, since genomic testing can be completed alongside other traditional husbandry procedures.
"Doing AI has been great at giving us insight into which breeders are most suited to our breeding objectives, and when we reach our goal herd size in the future, we hope to use genomic data to be stricter with our reproductive decision making – including selling and culling."
