NORTHERN beef producers have heard hints on genetics, nutrition and management during a workshop piloted in North Queensland for the first time.
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About 25 producers attended a Bred Well Fed Well workshop at Russell Lethbridge's Werrington Station at Einasleigh.
The benefits of using superior genetics combined with high performance management was the focus of the program, with participants encouraged to tailor information to their individual operations.
Latrobe University lecturer Dr Jason Trompf and Tropical Beef Technology Services Technical Officer Tim Emery delivered the workshop.
Mr Emery said it was great to be able to pilot the workshop at Einasleigh in the north, as the two other Queensland run pilots took place much further south on-farm at Banana and Jandowae.
Just over 100 participants have attended the three workshops and Mr Emery said he believed participants took away new-found knowledge, that could be used to inform business decisions.
Both presenters spoke about refining bull buying strategies to ensure the best bulls are being bought for an individual business.
"It's important that producers identify the traits of importance for their particular situation and their breeding objectives," Mr Emery said.
An exercise conducted at the yards using a handful of bulls highlighted the difficulty in identifying superior genetic merit for a range of traits just by looking at the animals.
EBVs on the bulls were then utilised to demonstrate the amount of genetic variation that existed among the bulls.
Mr Emery encouraged attendees to take advantage of the free BREEDPLAN website, which was developed in Armidale 30 years ago and is the world's most widely used genetic evaluation system for beef cattle, being used across 14 countries.
He said BREEDPLAN produced EBVs of recorded cattle for a range of important production traits including weight, carcase and fertility.
Included in the calculation of EBVs are the animal's own performance, the performance of known relatives, the heritability of each trait and the relationship between the different traits.
"Time and time again, projects have showcased the impact of using animals with high versus low genetic merit for particular traits and the actual difference in progeny performance has been very close to the predicted difference," Mr Emery said.
"EBVs are a free tool, they're available for anyone to use, and they can assist producers make an informed, objective decision about their future genetic direction.
"They should not be used in isolation, but instead be used in conjunction with fertility, structural soundness and temperament as part of the bull buying process."
Mr Emery said the second part of the workshop focused on refining nutrition and management to ensure producers were getting the most out of their herd.
Matching the current physiological demands of animals to the available feed supply was one of the topics discussed, and a yard session focused on body condition scoring.
Mr Emery said the success of the three Queensland pilot workshops would be extensively reviewed to determine if Bred Well Fed Well will roll out on a larger scale in Northern Australia.
