I recently
attended a local cattleman's meeting and is often the case the meeting was
opened up for questions after the speaker had finished his talk. The first
question asked was, "Should we be line breeding"? The speaker who happened
to be a university educator thought for a brief moment and replied that
under no circumstances that he could think of would he consider line
breeding! He then made the comment that if you line bred you would lose
vigor and others would pass you up with faster genetic progress. I guess at
that point my question was, Where am I going and how far from my goals am I
when I get passed up!
Let me first clarify that I am in no way recommending line breeding in a
commercial cow herd. Hybrid vigor is too valuable a tool to not take
advantage of. If for instance you have been using bulls from the "Business
Breed" for consecutive rotations on your cows its time to change! That is
good business! I do believe however that it is the responsibility of the
seed stock producer to provide reliable breeding stock backed by generations
of cattle bred to strengthen the traits featured in a herd, and through line
breeding fixes those traits and at the same time maximizes heterosis when
crossed with another breed or composite.
Finally, line breeding does not make defects, it finds them! It is ironic
that the speaker's talk at that meeting was about managing genetic defects.
If only line breeding had been practiced by those who had developed the
lines responsible for the defects we are dealing with today, these problems
might have been contained or maybe even eliminated!
