DNA Dialogue – Why Is Hybrid Vigor Important

February 05, 2024

Troy Rowan, UTIA Genomics Center for the Advancement of Agriculture, discusses the importance of hybrid vigor and the benefits it can bring your herd in this DNA Dialogue episode.

 

Video Transcript

[Music]

Narrator: DNA Dialogue is brought to you by Igenity Beef powered by Neogen.

TITLE CARD: DNA Dialogue — Igenity® Beef — powered by Neogen®

[The screen shows Troy Rowan speaking with cuts to images of beef cattle.]

SUPERIMPOSE: Troy Rowan, UTIA Genomics Center for the Advancement of Agriculture

Troy Rowan: I think there are very, very few slam dunks in the beef industry, right? There's always trade-offs to technologies, but the one technology that I don't think that there's any trade-off to is utilizing crossbreeding and generating heterosis in your herd. So this hybrid vigor that's created when we breed two separate breeds to one another, it gives us more pounds at the end of the day and makes more productive females. So, if we're not utilizing crossbreeding in our herd, we're leaving money on the table both in the calf crop—so we're not generating the maximum amount of weight in a calf crop that we optimally would if we're crossbreeding—and the replacement females—that's where we get the biggest advantages of crossbreeding. We're definitely leaving money on the table there by not having that additional hybrid vigor that comes from a maternally derived cross of two separate breeds. Right? So, at the end of the day, today if we're not utilizing crossbreeding, we're leaving money on the table through the absence of hybrid vigor in our herds.

[Music]

TITLE CARD: DNA Dialogue — Igenity® Beef — powered by Neogen®

[The screen shows an ATV driving through a ranch gate. A rancher opening a pipe gate to pass through. Two ranchers observe their herd.]

SUPERIMPOSE: Igenity®

[The screen shows a rancher talking to the camera.]

SUPERIMPOSE: Hunter Horne, Director of Cattle Operations, Great Mark Western

Hunter: We know how expensive it is to keep and maintain heifers. What is also the fallout of those heifers if they're not the correct ones you're keeping and maintaining. We want to do as much as we can to get it right before we spend the money to impact our herd further down that road and keep successive females out of the wrong type of females.

Narrator: Igenity Beef. Contact your Neogen territory manager to test today.

SUPERIMPOSE: Neogen Logo neogen.com/igenity-beef

[Music]


Category: Beef, Dairy, Igenity® Profiles, FAQs