MERIT SEEN IN CROSS-BREEDING

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31760, 17 August 1968, Page 9

MERIT SEEN IN CROSS-BREEDING

Both in sheep and beef cattle breeding a New Zealander, Professor M. M. Cooper, who is dean of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Newcastle, in England, said in Ashburton last week-end, New Zealand could learn from Britain in the extent that sensible cross-breeding was used in that country.

It was sometimes said that there were too many sheep breeds in Britain, he said, but there were some breeds like the Scottish Blackface and the Swaledale which had the common capacity of being able to survive under difficult conditions. When these sheep were brought down on to the lower country and used with breeds like the Border Leicester, giving improvement in characteristics like growth rate and carcase quality, they also gave absolutely magnificent fat lamb mothers, and in an age balanced flock would give a lambing of 150 to 175 per cent. When mated to rams like the Suffolk these ewes would have twins growing to 801 b liveweight in 16 weeks on grass, and ewes of this sort would produce some thing like 601 b of lamb meat a year.

While these ewes produced very much less wool than New Zealand farmers would be accustomed to, he said It was reckoned that a good pro ductive ewe would give wool growth about $2.50 and lamb meat worth $lB to $2O.

Professor Cooper said that this sort of thing was giving British farming a tremen dous advantage. In the beef industry in Scotland and the North of England, Professor Cooper said, it would be found that most beef cows were crossbreds based on Dairy Shorthorns from Ireland crossed with either an Aberdeen Angus or Hereford. Once an attempt was made to improve within a breed, he said, although a great measure of uniformity was achieved the animals became much more subject to changes of environment This had to be investigated much more closely in New Zealand. In Britain, he said, they were not satisfied with the animals that they had. The Border Leicester was not sacrosanct.

Mr Oscar Colburn, the famous modern breeder, had started to improve the Clun Forest but had realised that progress was so slow that he would be an old man before he got very far, so the idea had come to him of putting four breeds—the Clun Forest, the Border Leicester, Dorset Horn and East Friesland—into the genetic melting pot to create a ram producing breed to take the place of the Border Leicester.

In stating that the testing of the resulting Colbred had not been completed yet, Professor Cooper said that the gamble might fail but it would be regrettable if it did for the reason that the concept was right. “A measure of crossbreeding and re-selection to get into a breed is no more than happened in the development of the principle breeds," said Professor Cooper.

Professor Cooper said that they had worked out that if

they concentrated on selection for litter size or lambing percentage in the Clun Forest, it would take 15 to 20 years to achieve the same advantage as could be achieved by a quarter injection of the highly prolific Finnish Landrace breed. There would be a slight deterioration in weight for age, but this could be corrected by using the right combination. Asked subsequently about the breeds of sheep that might be useful in increasing the efficiency of the New Zealand sheep industry. Professor Cooper mentioned the Finnish Landrace, the Isle de France, the German Merino (the mutton Merino) and the white faced German mutton breed or Oldenburg. In the development of the beef industry and the new dairy beef industry, Professor Cooper emphasised the need for the utmost efficiency and the absolute necessity of knowing the sort of product that the market wanted.

Professor Cooper suggested that the sort of product that would be needed would be the animal with a carcase at 18 months of age of not 4501 b —that was not good enough—but of not less than 6001 b. This could be achieved through a combination of genetics and management He said that in Britain they were getting Friesian and Friesian Hereford cross animals to this sort of weight on lOcwt of grain, but the growing season for grass was less than in New Zealand so that more cereal had to be used and in New Zealand the most economical method of doing this had to be worked out Professor Cooper said he believed that the Friesian was going to be important in the New Zealand beef industry. In Britain, he said, it now constituted 70 per cent of dairy cows and unless some other breed displaced It it would be up to 90 per cent in the next few years. He suggested that FrieslanHereford or Friesian - Aberdeen Angus could be useful beef cows, having size and milking ability and with the advantages of the Friesian, and these could be put with the fastest growing beef animal. This might be a Charolais cross—he said he was not suggesting a straight Charolais because of the possibility of ca’ving difficulty.