Estimation of breed and heterosis effects for cow productivity, carcass traits and income in beef × beef and dairy × beef crosses in commercial suckler cow production

Herd solutions from genetic evaluations can be used as a tool to rescale the expected expression of genetic potential in cattle

“…The effect of heterosis on carcass metrics regardless of environment, on the other hand, has been widely reported in previous cattle studies (Berry et al., 2018; Wetlesen et al. 2020). Previous studies have, in general, reported positive associations between an increase in heterosis coefficient and both CW and CF.…”

“…(2018) reported positive associations in dairy‐origin animals between an increase in heterosis coefficient and CC, whereas Wetlesen et al. (2020) reported negative associations in both beef‐ and dairy‐origin animals between an increase in heterosis coefficient and CC. The model solution from the regression of CC on heterosis coefficient in the present study (i.e.…”

“…Additionally, given the documented effect of heterosis on carcass traits in cattle (Berry et al., 2018; Wetlesen et al. 2020), a further objective was to determine whether heterosis‐by‐environment (H x E) interactions exist for the carcass traits of interest.…”

The Association Between Genomic Heterozygosity and Carcass Merit in Cattle

“…Nonetheless, nonadditive SNP effects, namely the phenomenon known as heterosis and its underlining molecular mechanism known as dominance, are important considerations, especially in relation to mate selection and the prediction of actual phenotypic performance. The benefits of exploiting heterosis to improve phenotypic performance have been widely reported in previous cattle studies (Berry et al, 2018;Wetlesen et al, 2020). Furthermore, the need to properly adjust for the effects of heterosis in the analysis of crossbred livestock populations is well known (Dickerson, 1973;VanRaden and Sanders, 2003;Williams et al, 2010).…”

“…To date, this adjustment usually involves the inclusion of a pairwise breed heterosis coefficient ( Dickerson, 1973 ; VanRaden and Sanders, 2003 ) in the statistical model ( VanRaden and Sanders, 2003 ; Berry et al, 2019 ; Twomey et al, 2020 ). Regression coefficients from the regression of animal performance on such breed composition-based heterosis coefficients have been widely reported for a variety of traits in cattle, including carcass traits (i.e., the traits of interest to the present study) ( Berry et al, 2018 ; Wetlesen et al, 2020 ; Kenny et al, 2021 ). The use of a heterosis coefficient based on breed composition acts as a proxy for the expected heterozygosity in an animal’s genome ( Dickerson, 1973 ).…”