What is GNXbred?
Genetic Improvement of Pure Line GN (Genetic Nucleus) animals is pointless unless that improvement is observed at commercial level. The objective of PIC’s breeding programme is to maximise the rate of genetic improvement (delta G) so that the performance and profitability of the breeding animals and their commercial offspring increases generation after generation. PICs GNXbred program measures performance of the cross-bred progeny of pure GN herd sires in commercial environments with the sole objective of selecting pure line animals for the performance of their commercial offspring.
How does it work?
Single-sire matings using semen from pure line GN boars are performed in commercial disease challengedproducer farms (point 1, Figure 1). Reproduction and longevity data from commercial sows (point 2a, Figure 1) and mortality, production and carcass trait data from commercial cross-piglets (point 2b, Figure 1) are recorded and fed into PICtraq, PICs proprietary database. This information is used in combination with the animal’s own performance and that of its pure line relatives (point 3, Figure 1) to calculate Cross-bred Breeding Values (CBVs) of the pure line animals at the GN (point 4, Figure 1).
Breeding for Profitability Slick
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