Application of strategies of genomics studies applied to productive traits in Montana Composite Tropical® cattle

Abstract

Composite cattle, formed from four different genetic groups, are an alternative for the production of beef cattle, considering the processes that involve genetic evaluations, they result in animals with high breeding value and efficiency, besides promoting the use of heterosis and that fit the technical and environmental challenges of Brazilian livestock. The incorporation of the genomic information promotes greater efficiency in the prediction of breeding values, with the increase in accuracy, providing smaller risks as to the choice of sires and dams that will form the new generations. However, these applications require specific methodologies to estimate the additive and non-additive genetic effects, as well as genotype-environment interaction, with the use of genomics information. Nowadays, the models and methodologies used are based on the genetic and genomic evaluation applied to animals of pure breeds and the knowledge of the use of genetics in synthetic or composite bovine breeds is very restricted. In this project, the objective is to apply genomic selection methodology and imputation strategies to elucidate the diverse of the Montana Composite Tropical® population, combining different approaches to improve the capacity of the statistical analyses used in the selection of animals with high breeding value. In order, the traits composing the program selection index of composite cattle, as birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), weight at 12 months (W12), scrotal circumference at 14 months (SC14) and musculature at 14 months (MUSC14) from a total of 382,958 records will be used to execute the analyses for the implementation of the methodology and strategy of imputation and genomic selection. We believe that despite the difficulties in the development and procedure these methodologies for composite animals, the applicability can be very promising to determine the most appropriate method to obtain the genomic breeding values for productive traits, improving the selection process of beef cattle.