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THE VALUE OF ACCURACY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26

be higher, thus mitigating the risk of introducing new, unproven genetics. In summary, understanding accuracy more completely and how it can be of value in your decision-making process can improve your operation from both a

production and profitability standpoint. However, you must evaluate the trad- eoffs that come with selecting younger, lower accuracy bulls and determine the level of risk tolerance for your operation.

Individual risk tolerance should be evaluated as well as assessing on a trait-by-trait basis, considering current performance and breeding objectives. If a producer is slightly more risk tolerant, it may pay off to choose a lower accu- racy bull with stellar EPDs, even though they know that the bull’s true EPD may fall within a relatively wide range of the reported EPD. One last point to consider with the previous example in mind is increasing accuracy through the mean – the effect of selecting multiple bulls on mean EPD of the group. “As I increase the number of animals in a group, I have more confidence in the average of those individuals. If I turn out a larger group of bulls in a pasture, it’s not the individual genetic merit that I’m really interested in; it’s the average of their genetic merits and the accu- racy of that average that will always be exceptionally high,” Spangler explained. With this concept in mind, a pro- ducer can take advantage of including individual bulls in the group that are lowly accurate, because the accuracy of the average of the entire group will

SGBI

Need to Know

P rogress continues to be made with the much anticipated pedigree platform. In the spring meeting of the board of directors, a partnership with DigitalBeef was approved as the association’s new pedigree platform provider. DigitalBeef is widely regarded as the most user-friendly industry platform, with some of the most advanced registry features available. We have been working diligently to provide the needed information for the DigitalBeef team to complete the Santa Gertrudis Breeders International (SGBI) platform. To date, we have a working test site that we will continue to monitor and adjust in-house to meet our members’ needs. Once complete, a beta test will be run among members, with the final version expected to be rolled out to the entire membership by the end of year. “We feel members will enjoy the ease of use within the DigitalBeef platform,” says SGBI Executive Director Webb Fields. “The new registry platform should allow a new member to easily pick up the process of registering, transferring and managing animals with ease, while providing even our most seasoned platform users more freedoms and advanced tools that will make managing their herds a breeze.” SGBI is committed to excellent member service and providing the DigitalBeef platform to the Santa Gertrudis registry is a step in that continued effort.

SEPTEMBER 2021 • WWW.SANTAGERTRUDIS.COM

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