Beef + Lamb New Zealand is leading a ground-breaking genomics project which will help future-proof New Zealand’s sheep industry.
The project, delivered by B+LNZ’s Cool Sheep® programme, will involve genotyping a large number of influential sires across a range of sheep breeds, including smaller or minority breeds.
It supports long-term goals of improving prediction accuracy for traits that are important to farmers, including health, productivity and resilience. It also helps smaller breed groups and less connected flocks tap into genomic tools, supporting their access to breeding values and opportunities to make real genetic gains.
Dr Jason Archer, B+LNZ’s Head of Genetics, says genomics has further potential yet to be fully tapped by the sheep industry, and this project will help make genomic technologies more accessible and more impactful.
He says by investing in genotyping now, B+LNZ is helping the sheep industry future-proof breeding programmes and better respond to challenges around animal welfare, labour inputs and environmental sustainability.
Dr Archer says it is an ambitious project as they hope to genotype up to 3500 rams owned by more than 300 breeders. This will help build a comprehensive population of genotypes.
“In the long term, this will help more farmers benefit from genomic information for a wide number of traits and help researchers better characterise the genetics of NZ’s recorded sheep population.”
nProve data was used to identify influential rams based on a range of criteria, including those that are well connected to other flocks, have sired a number of progeny or represent diverse breeds. The owners of these rams have been contacted and invited to participate in the study by simply collecting a tissue sample and sending it in for genotyping.
Dr Archer says the only cost to the breeder is time spent collecting the tissue sample, all other costs are covered, and in most cases, participating breeders will have the genotype data loaded into nProve which will enhance their New Zealand Genetic Evaluation (NZGE) results.
While there will be some breeds that do not have genotypes included in the NZGE yet, the project does lay the groundwork for smaller breed groups to benefit from genomic tools, helping them access breeding values and participate in genetic improvement.
Dr Archer says the results of the genotyping will give researchers a better understanding of genetic diversity across breeds as well as a deeper view of an animal’s full genome.
When combined with other animals’ genomes, this data set gives researchers a powerful insight into future capabilities. For example, it will support future trait identification, improve the accuracy of molecular breeding values and strengthen genomic predictions.
“Importantly, it will help provide pathways for minority breeds and less connected flocks to achieve comparative breeding values for traits in the future. This will help ensure more farmers can benefit from genetic progress.”
Genotypes will be collected using medium density (MD) genotyping or low pass sequencing.
Low pass sequencing is next generation technology being trialled by AgResearch and is a cost-effective method of reading an animal’s genome. It essentially skim-reads the genome and this enables the whole genome to be sequenced at a relatively low cost. Part of the project involves comparing this new technology to current genotyping approaches and preparing for the future.
The Cool Sheep® programme is led by B+LNZ, with support from the Ministry for Primary Industries through its Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
More information about this project can be viewed in this video interview with Jason Archer.