LINE 1 HEREFORD CATTLE: CONSERVED AND TRANSFORMATIVE Harvey Blackburn Mike MacNeil Vicki Leesburg
Line 1 Hereford Cattle
Line 1 breeding program more than 75 years old.
Unique in the contribution to science and industry
Line 1 Developmental Objectives
1930’s no systematic effort to develop, isolate, perpetuate, or catalog superior livestock germplasm.
Objective: Develop true breeding lines of Hereford cattle adapted to western range areas, having high fertility & superior quality
Line 1 Development
50 cows used to form line (Montana).
2 bulls were paternal ½ sibs (Colorado).
Daughters of one bull bred to the paternal 1/2 sib.
Selection based upon: Progeny testing Rate & efficiency of BW gain
to 1 yr of age
Advance Domino 20
Advance Domino 54
Early Contributions
Correction factors for analyzing (Knapp et al., 1940; Koch and Clark, 1955)
Sex of calf Season of birth Age of dam
1st estimates of heritability and genetic correlations for beef cattle traits (Knapp & Nordskog, 1946; Knapp & Clark, 1947, 1950)
Later Contributions
Genetic x environmental interactions (Florida-Montana)
Breeding value estimation
Crossbreeding systems
Industry Linkages
Dissemination of Line 1 germplasm began 1940’s.
Scientist Woodward convinced brother-in-law (J. Cooper & L. Holden) merits of line breeding and selection based upon performance
By 2008 1,303 Lines 1 bulls transferred from Miles City to registered and commercial breeders
Industry Trends and Issues
Industry Issue Line 1 Contribution
Dwarfism
Importation of continental breeds from Europe in late 60’s & 70’s
Late 20 century Deleterious recessive – idiopathic epilepsy
Line 1 free of dwarfism gene
Line 1 selected for growth gave Hereford breeders a resource to compete
Line 1 used
By 1984 57% of bulls listed in Am Hereford Assoc sire summary were predominantly Line 1
Cryopreserved Collection
Samples from 1948 to the present are in the gene bank.
Deviation from the Mean Post-thaw Motility for Hereford Bulls (* denotes bulls with deviations significantly different from zero)
Global Relationships (Leesburg, 2012)
Country # Sires evaluated % with Line 1 relationship
Ave Relationship L1
United Kingdom 1,498 22% .106
Australia 1,769 30% .116
Uruguay 318 23% .106
Canada 317,478 dataset 8% 0.037
South Africa* entire pop
4,491 14% .24 .38 microsat
United States Entire population 81% 0.026
Use in Genomic Research
L1 Dominette 01449 Provided DNA for bovine genome sequence Genetic relationship of sire and daughter 93%
L1 Domino 99375 Provided DNA bacterial artificial chromosome BAC library - discovery of causal mutations affecting economically important traits
Conclusions Line 1 is a globally important Hereford population
Success of US Herefords can be largely attributed to:
the population and
breeders willingness to further use and manipulate Line 1 genetics
Potential to make further contributions
Some big questions: How is it that an inbred population can be so robust in a
broad array of environments, including different countries? During the inbreeding process were deleterious alleles
deleted from the population?