Beef Improvement Federation
ELDON COLE
MT. VERNON, MO.
I tuned in to most of the BIF webinar sessions last week. Lots of excellent talks that cause us to reflect back and look forward to innovations that are headed your way. Watch for lots of beef periodicals to highlight presentations in coming weeks. You can also find them on-line. Here’s a few items I gave several stars to in my notes.
• The future pricing of beef cattle from the packer should compensate the breeder (cow-calf sector) and feeder for producing a top value carcass rather than paying the same price for a group. Bill Rishel, Angus breeder from Nebraska
• Heterosis is under utilized. Retiring president of BIF, Tommy Clark, Virginia
• Consumer trust may be the most important item to drive profits upward. Don Close, Rabo Agri Finance
• Are you adapting or matching your cows to the environment on which you run your cows? Clay Mathis – Texas A & M – King Ranch Institute
• Our carbon footprint is smaller now as we’ve gone to heavier carcasses. The adoption of DNA (genomic) technology has sped up the improvement of carcass quality grade. Brian Bertelsen, U. S. Premium Beef
• Docile animals have more resistance to disease. Christian Duff, Angus Australia
• There’s no need to publish birth weight EPDs since they’re an important part of CED (calving ease direct) Matt Spangler, University of Nebraska
• Two new Angus indexes will be rolled out this summer. One for Holstein and one for Jersey cows. Steven Miller and Jason Archer, Angus Genetics Inc. and AbacusBio.
• Why do cow men always brag about producing 600 lb. calves when they should be bragging about how low their cost of keeping a cow is? Travis Mulliniks, University of Nebraska. ∆
ELDON COLE: Extension Livestock Specialist, University of Missouri