WITH the Merino Lifetime Productivity Project (MLP) Pingelly site drawing to a close, a big crowd turned out last Friday to the trial's final field day at The University of Western Australia's Ridgefield property, west of Pingelly.
There was plenty of interest from WA's sheep industry which took the opportunity to view the sire progeny groups of 2016 and 2017-drop ewes for the final time with the project concluding next year.
Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit (AGBU) analysis of the MLP data is set to be completed by 2026.
MLP is a $13 million project funded by Australian Wool Innovation and industry partners over 10 years.
It is one of the biggest and longest Merino genetics projects ever run, with 166 sires used in five Merino sire evaluation sites across Australia set to produce more than 25,000 F1 ewe progeny over the lifetime of the project.
It was designed to capture lifetime data across diverse environments and Merino types to help better understand and deliver Merino ewe lifetime performance outcomes for the Australian Merino industry.
The collaborative effort generates a unique Merino dataset that can be analysed to better understand how current selection approaches, using visual selection along with raw data, sire adjusted means, flock breeding values (FBV) (within site/drop) and Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) with and without genomic information, best predict the lifetime performance of the Merino ewe and how breeding strategies might be enhanced to deliver better productivity improvements to industry in the future (source: Merino Superior Sires).
The 28 Merino and Poll Merino evaluation sires taking part in the Pingelly site represent a good cross section of the State's Merino breeding areas and features industry impact sires, trait leaders and Eastern States and WA linkage sires used in all sites.
The ewe progeny are AI-bred by the evaluation sires and out of easy care medium to large frame medium wool ewes of good conformation and constitution from Ridgefield's commercial flock.
The ewes are naturally syndicate mated to Ridgefield maternal efficiency and commercial flock rams to lamb in July with the F1 ewe assessed through its life while its F2 progeny is assessed until weaning.
Following survey feedback from visitors, preliminary ASBVs for each sire were displayed for the first time, along with preliminary reproduction raw data for the ewes.
Visitors were presented with extensive information available for each sire group with raw data and adjusted sire means and FBVs for each category.
The extensively measured data includes birth/rear type, survival counts, wool, weight and carcase measurement, professional visual constitution and wool classing - by classers Nathan King, Mitchell Crosby and Preston Clarke - and reproduction for each lambing year.
Despite their classing grade, all ewes are retained in the trial and assessed throughout their life.
MLP Pingelly site committee chairman Brett Jones, Ejanding stud, Dowerin, opened proceedings and welcomed everyone to the day.
"It feels like we are finishing being the final field day, but we are coming to the end of the data collection phase and at the start of the analysis and the information gathered will be ongoing and should be fantastic," Mr Jones said.
Guest speakers involved in the project presented some snapshots into preliminary findings they've observed at Pingelly and reiterated it was not final data analysis with ewes still to be shorn, mid-side sampled and classed.
MLP Pingelly site manager Bronwyn Clarke spoke about visual classing outcomes, early versus later FBVs and total lifetime productivity.
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Ms Clarke said the classers were doing a really good job with wool and body conformation classing outcomes strongly aligning with the ewes' FBVs and breeding objectives each year for wool quality, clean fleece weight, bodyweight and structure.
She said some traits can be strongly correlated with FBV (from 2018 to 2022) from one measurement (such as clean fleece weight with moderate to high heritability), giving a pretty good indication on how the ewes will perform over their lifetime and make selection decisions.
But this varies with traits which need more data collected such as reproduction to increase accuracies in breeding values.
AGBU research scientist Peter Wahinya presented some preliminary findings of the impact of reproduction cycle (gestation/lactation) and culling on adult ewe productivity, comparing single and twin bearing ewes to dry ewes for micron and clean fleece weight and body score and weight and how it effects FBVs.
"Reproduction has a bias if we don't adjust for it for FBV and the impact is greatest in the least common category of dry ewes," Mr Wahinya said.
The microphone was then handed to AGBU principal research scientist Daniel Brown who spoke about how diverse the group of sires were in traits at Pingelly which was consistent with industry, with a focus on characteristics of sires differing in weaning rate and reproduction performance.
"There is a large variation in reproduction performance expected in a diverse group of sires and well recorded for this trait," Mr Brown said.
"This was generally independent of almost all other traits we looked at with some small positive associations but highlights the need for balanced selection and selecting for all traits important to us."
AGBU research scientist Sam Walkom was subbed in to deliver his colleague Andrew Swan's analysis on the contribution of lifetime production of the ewes and how it impacts on whole flock and annual wool income based on a commercial scenario.
"There is a lot of data being collected on ewes after the selection decision has been made to keep them in the breeding flock," Mr Walkom said.
"This makes it an ideal candidate for genomics and why MLP will be so valuable for understanding of these traits and driving genomic selection within the industry.
"It is providing the perfect reference, the ewes have been carried longer than they may have in the commercial system, recorded in much more detail and helps drive the genomic reference and the quality of ASBVs for industry."
Prior to visitors heading outside to the yards, AWI innovation program manager - genetics, Geoff Lindon, presented on some likely outcomes from MLP and what could be delivered to industry.
"We are still in the data collection phase and a significant analysis job ahead of us across the five sites," Mr Lindon said.
"We've collected 1.7 million of 1.9 million units of data and a lot of these are critical end of life records impacting lifetime productivity."
He said one of the key questions MLP is looking to answer is how do the current indexes line-up with the profitability and productivity of the progeny.
"The ability to accurately predict animals at a young age for their lifetime productivity is a key part in improving the returns of Merinos and finding the sweet point for individual breeders in terms of cost, accuracy and genetic gain," Mr Lindon said.
"Results are showing the value of visual classing and we need to combine this with objective data."
He said there were some traits not in the indexes because there is no data to support it.
"Resilience and survival is a critical one, some sires have 40 per cent more ewe progeny in the project, look at the impact this would have on financial returns," Mr Lindon said.
He said work was being done on developing new ASBVs for feed efficiency, welfare, urine stain, faecal consistency for dag and WEC and mature body weight.
MLP project manager Anne Ramsay talked through the pen card information to guests, before Mr Jones introduced each of the sire's progeny groups and how they have performed in the trial to date.
