SERVICES > Trait Prioritisation
Set clear breeding priorities with data-driven trait selection and economic weighting
AbacusBio Consultants
Simultaneously improving multiple traits, while balancing economic and environmental outcomes is within reach.
But there is some groundwork to be done by breeding programmes hoping to reap the benefits of trait prioritisation/selection indexes. What is that groundwork? In what order should it be done? How far away is your breeding programme from implementing data-driven selection indexes? AbacusBio has been at the forefront of selection indexes for over 20 years.
We’ve designed a cost-efficient readiness programme to answer those exact questions and more, while providing advice specific to the phase you’re at in your breeding programme.
Trait Prioritisation & Breeding Objective / Selection Indexes
We are experts in trait prioritisation and are known for improving our clients’ outcomes with complete breeding objective and selection index solutions. Whether your priorities are profit, environmental, social, or a combination of outcomes, you can be confident your breeding decisions are meeting the needs of the market.
Our data-driven approach makes it easy to demonstrate the ‘why’ behind breeding decisions and forecast and track the impact of genetic improvement over time.
Common issues with Trait Prioritisation programmes
- Your genetic evaluations calculate breeding values based on genotypes, phenotypes, and pedigree information but don’t include economic data.
- Your selection indices exist only in unsystematic notes held by your breeders, or worse: your breeders work based on memory and their best knowledge of the market.
- Adding new traits to your evaluations and selection indices is a slow and painful process. You keep putting it off (sometimes for a decade or more… and then you need a rebuild from the ground up, which feels even more daunting).
- Your success is variable, depending on the breeder, the market, and the complexity of your produce.
Enhanced Trait Prioritisation with AbacusBio
- We’ll help you to develop a systematic approach to putting together a selection index your customers will respond to.
- Combine the knowledge of your breeders, trait correlation data, trait heritability, and information from the marketplace: how valuable are the various traits in the produce? What’s most important to growers, commercial farmers, and consumers? What are they willing to pay for?
- Bundle breeding values with economic weights for a balanced selection index that expresses their impact in dollars and cents.
- Know which genetic traits or breeding values to prioritise to reach your goals.
- Focus on the traits your customers care about and drive genetic selection based on solid information.
“Incredibly fast turnaround.”
“I think in September, the Board of Directors approved the projects. In the following June, we basically launched new indexes. Which is incredible.”
Steve Miller
Director of Genetic Research
American Angus Association (2016 -2020)
Optimize the economic and environmental impact of traits with our 4-phase program
Make data-informed strategic decisions within your breeding program, based on the four phases of our Trait Prioritization Program.
The insights gained in each phase will allow you to align your breeding program’s direction with the goals of your users and stakeholders.
As a result, you can look forward to a high adoption rate of your new selection indices because they reflect the preferences of users, stakeholders, and groups who directly benefit from improved varieties.
That said, you can also book the first two phases of the program as a stand-alone service.
Here’s how it works:
Trait Prioritization
1. Economic Modelling
Focuses on quantifying trait economic values from a range of perspectives across different production systems.
2. Stakeholder Surveys
Applies methods to capture preferences for trait improvements as well as the non-market drivers, informing the development of selection indices.
3. Selection Index Creation
Incorporates economic information and trait preferences into customized selection indices.
4. Selection Index Implementation
Applies elements from phases 1, 2 and 3 to the structure of existing breeding programs.
Know what traits to breed for and why
Your Trait Prioritization Program starts with quantifying the economic values of the traits you’re considering. To do justice to your organization’s complexity, we look at this data from a range of perspectives, across different production systems and target markets. For example, if you’re looking to breed for environmental outcomes, we transform the economic values into desired sustainability metrics.
Easy-to-use economic algorithms help you to understand the net benefit of an improvement in each genetic trait of interest. So your breeding programs focus on the values that matter most. And your selection or advancement decisions will no longer neglect crucial elements such as revenues, costs, or sustainability metrics.
Once you know the economic value of your preferred genetic traits, we’ll help you understand how your stakeholders evaluate each trait. Our method captures the preferences of growers and other stakeholders as well as non-market and sociodemographic drivers.
With this data aggregated, you can identify and group stakeholders according to trait preference, views, attitudes, and priorities.
By forecasting how specific genetic traits will drive demand for your product, you’ll design new varieties with confidence, increase adoption, and maximize economic and social impact.
Now we’re ready to integrate the trait weightings gathered from the models, algorithms, and surveys in phases 1 and 2. So you can select candidates with confidence, we’ll determine an optimal combination of trait weightings. Our methodology balances genetic gain over the range of traits competing for selection effort while considering existing correlations amongst them. This approach protects you against incompatibilities between economic values and Expected Breeding Values (EBVs).
To ensure success, breeders need a detailed understanding of how indices inform selection. We undertake training and validation of breeders’ use of indices. This isn’t to check if indices are being used correctly, but to help predict candidate advancements as a result of index use. will drive demand for your product, you’ll design new varieties with confidence, increase adoption, and maximize economic and social impact.
Once we have all the results from phases 1, 2, and 3, we can apply them to the structure of your breeding program(s). To realize the maximum benefit from using your new selection indices, we incorporate the modeled economic impacts and evaluated stakeholder preferences for trait changes into your breeding programs.
The best selection index is the one that gets used in everyday decision-making. That’s why we work with breeding program managers and breeders to integrate selection index tools to support advancement decisions in all pipeline stages and for product placement. Your users get access to information on new genetics products such as varieties, lines, hybrids, breeds, and selection candidates, which creates a solid foundation for their decision-making process.
We’ll also quantify the value generated for stakeholders from historic and ongoing genetic improvement efforts. This data will support the accurate inclusion of selection indices you developed previously into the information technology infrastructure that supports genetic improvement, product deployment, and marketing activities in your organisation. between economic values and Expected Breeding Values (EBVs).
Case Study
Balancing beef and dairy performance for the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation
With the dairy herd in Ireland bigger than ever, more and more dairy-influenced stock was available for beef production in 2018. However, the quality of Irish beef was at risk of deteriorating. In collaboration with Teagasc and ICBF, Abacus consultants Peter Amer and Fiona Hely created a new selection index based on the estimated genetic potential of beef bulls to produce profitable, high-quality cattle when mated to dairy cows. The new index has a minimal impact on dairy cow performance, prioritising ease of calving and short gestation lengths.
