SG_USA_November_2022

Santa Gertrudis USU Collaborative Heterosis Project By Matthew D. Garcia, M.S., MBA, Ph.D., Utah State University PROJECT UPDATE

I t is really hard to believe that we are getting ready to enter the fifth year of our collaborative heterosis project. Initially, we had planned on illustrating the benefits of heterosis, while proving that the Santa Gertrudis breed was going to be adaptable as a crossbreeding strat egy in northern Utah. While we instantly proved calf survivability during calving in February and showed that we can remarkably increase weaning weights while not sacrificing any carcass quality or composition, there was still a lot of information that we had yet to produce. We have been working hard collecting more information, but this project has also taken off in many different directions from Extension, teaching and research perspectives. In this article I will briefly describe a few projects that are currently involving the Santa Gertrudis F1 calves. Feedlot Studies Since this project’s inception, a major objective was to prove that we could increase calf performance (calf surviv ability, weaning weights, etc.) without sacrificing calf feedlot performance, and carcass quality and composition. Every F1 steer produced has entered the feedlot and had carcass measurements taken. When comparing F1 steers to Angus sired steers, there was never a difference in quality grade; however, the F1 Santa Gertrudis steers have always had signifi cantly better (P < 0.05) yield grades than the Angus-sired steers. This means that the F1 steers are producing equal quality, but much higher retail yields of lean beef cuts than the Angus-sired steers. We have been able to repeat this measure ment across years and have also been able to repeat that the F1 steers used significantly less (P < 0.05) feed when finishing to produce these results.

Mineral and Growth Promotant Studies Being that Utah is extremely deficient in copper and selenium, we decided to put the animals into a mineral trial when they entered the feedlot. Animals were given no mineral, injectable mineral or ad libitum loose mineral. The F1 steers performed very similarly with loose and injectable mineral, but were better than the animals that got no mineral. It was interesting that the F1 steers that didn’t receive mineral still performed signifi cantly better than the Angus-sired steers in the feedlot. A second part of this trial was to evaluate how growth promotants would affect performance and carcass qual ity. Although we had proven we could produce a high-quality final product, we needed to verify how growth promotants (widely used in finishing protocols) would affect final product. There is extensive work indicating growth promotants can have a negative effect on carcass qual ity, especially in Bos indicus -influenced animals. Animals were assigned to a no-promotant group, single-promotant or aggressive-multiple-promotant group. What was interesting was that we saw no impact on carcass quality from the non implant group or single-promotant group. The single-implant group was more effi cient during the trial than the no-implant group. However, the double-implant group was not significantly different from the one-implant group with regards to growth but was impacted on carcass quality. Furthermore, the single-promo tant group outperformed the single- and double-implant Angus-sired groups with regard to growth and efficiency in the feedlot, and yielded significantly better, but was not significantly different in carcass quality.

Environmental Study Our research group recently partnered with the range science and soils group to evaluate cattle movement and range usage in rangeland grazing systems. We were approached by this group due to the fact that our F1 cows and heifers seem to be more compatible and resilient in our Utah range environments. They will be measuring cow performance (breed back, calf weaning weights, weaned calf crop), cow pasture utilization (GPS and pedometer measurements) and plant selectivity. Prior to this project, we bred these cows to ensure that no productivity was lost, and we were more than willing to have this data collected because this range ground where they will be evalu ated is where they were going to be prior to calving. This project is really aiming to help us identify more resilient animals that should remain productive during drought and non-drought years. Summary While this project is entering its fifth year, we still have many more projects in the works. The F1 calves have become a hot item for research but are also being incorporated into our teaching curricu lum and have always been part of our Extension program. We have established a core group of 40 F1 cows and will be expanding it to 75 permanent F1 cows in our base herd. These F1 animals will also be incorporated into Extension’s Utah Beef Field Day in February to fur ther highlight the benefit of heterosis in your beef herd. We look forward to our continued collaboration and welcome any comments or suggestions.

Osborne Livestock........................... 7 Parker Farms.................................... 7 Passion Farms............................ 11, 17 Pitchford Cattle Co.. ..................... 19 Pinnacle Cattle Co. LLC................ 18 Polled Power Genetics....................5 Polled Santa Gertrudis Association...................................5 Quail Valley Farms...........................9 Red View Farms............................... 7 Richmond Photography & Video............................................ 19 Ridge Point Ranch...........................11 Rocking A Ranch. .......................... 19 Rockin B Farm..................................11 Rose Hill Ranch. ............................ 19 Running M Ranch.......................... 18 Santa Gertrudis Small Breeders Group............................11

Shampain Ranch. ............................ 7 South Texas Santa Gertrudis Association..................................13 Strait Ranches............................... 19 T&S Farm........................................ 18 Thomas Burnett Cattle Farm.........................................11, 19 Tideland Farms. ............................. 18 Tinney Farms....................................2 Triple P Ranch..................................11. Twisted C Farms. ........................... 18 Urbanosky Ranch.......................... 19 Vesper Ranch................................. 19 VZ Cattle...........................................11. Wendt Ranches.......................... 3, 19 Williams Farm................................ 18 WindCrest Farm............................... 7 Wunderlich Farms......................... 19

Creech Farms...................................5 Crosswinds Ranch......................... 18 Diamond G Ranch.......................... 16 District 6 Breeders.......................... 7 Double TT Ranch........................... 18 Excell Santa Gertrudis.................. 19 Flying C Ranch.................................5 Four J Cattle. ................................. 19 Fulton Farms. ................................. 19 Goodin Farms................................. 18 Grandview Farms.....................18, 22 Graves Creek Ranch LLC................5 Gyranda Santa Gertrudis.............. 19 Hargis Farms.................................. 19

Harris Riverbend Farms................ 19 Heath Farms................................... 18 Hefte Ranch................................... 19 Iron Oaks Cattle............................. 19 Jernigan Ranch............................. 18 John Martin Ranches................... 19 KC Ranch LLC. ............................... 18 King Ranch Inc...............................24 La Campana Ranch. .......................14 Lucky L Farm....................................11. MC Ranch....................................... 18 Morse View Farm.............................11 Old Agency Reserve. ..................... 18 Olivarez Ranches........................... 19

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Borchers Southern Y Ranches LP...........................18, 23 Briggs Ranches.............................. 18 C Bar C Ranch.............................7, 18 Carley’s Show Cattle.......................11 Cherokee Ranch & Castle............ 18 Corporron Acres............................ 18 Cox Mill Farms............................... 18

777 Farms.........................................5 3WC Cattle.......................................11 4S Farms......................................... 18 5J’s Cattle Company.......................5 American Cattle Enterprise............9 Arrow Creek Santa Gertrudis.........11 Bieri Farms................................15, 18 Black Tip Cattle. ............................ 18

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