February 12, 2002

Beef Specialist Urges Producers to Remember the Power of Crossbreeding

As cattle producers purchase bulls and gear up for another breeding season, they need to remember the power of crossbreeding, a North Dakota State University beef specialist says.

"I’ve seen a number of herds across the region that are not taking advantage of the benefits of crossbreeding," says Greg Lardy of the NDSU Extension Service. "We have some very popular breeds and some commercial producers who are essentially straight breeding." The boost in performance that comes from crossbreeding is called heterosis and is sometimes referred to as "hybrid vigor."

"The real value of crossbreeding is in the crossbred cow," Lardy says. "Commercial cattle producers need to take advantage of this maternal heterosis and plan for it as they develop their breeding programs. Crossbreeding is probably one of the few tools that commercial cattlemen can use which costs nothing and can provide high returns."

Over the last two decades poorly managed or unmanaged crossbreeding systems have probably decreased returns in some commercial operations and tended to increase rather than decrease variability in beef cattle, Lardy notes. Many commercial cattleman have abandoned crossbreeding in an attempt to simplify management or undo past crossbreeding mistakes.

"However, the value of a good crossbreeding system cannot be overlooked," he says. Individual heterosis is the increase in productivity that occurs when producing a crossbred calf from a purebred sire and a purebred cow. Maternal heterois is the increase in productivity achieved by using this crossbred calf as a cow in your herd.

USDA researchers found that individual heterosis could boost weaning percentage by 3 percent, and maternal heterosis could increase that value by 6.4 percent for a total increase of nearly 9.4 percent. The researchers saw similar results for weaning weights. For weaning weight per cow exposed, the scientists saw a total increase of more than 23 percent when individual and maternal heterosis were taken into account.

Lardy notes that beef production traits that typically benefit most from heterosis are those that are related to fertility. Those traits also aren’t usually strongly related to genetics. "These are typically traits such as cow fertility, weaning percentages, survival, and other traits which tend to be influenced by the environment," Lardy explains.

Researchers found that traits like calving rate, calf survival to weaning and weaning rate benefitted most from heterosis. However, heterosis had little influence on cutability, quality grade, ribeye area or mature cow weight – traits that are strongly influenced by genetics.

"Don’t forget about placing all of this in the context of your ranch management scheme as you select bulls," Lardy says. "Even with the increased emphasis on carcass traits that we see in the industry today, cow fertility is still the single most important trait influencing the productivity and profitability of your herd."

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Source: Greg Lardy, (701) 231-7660, glardy@ndsuext.nodak.edu
Editor: Tom Jirik, (701) 231-9629, tjirik@ndsuext.nodak.edu

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