European Brown Swiss Federation
GENETICS
Intergenomics project
The European federation with the full support of all the European National associations funded and managed a project developed with Interbull, named Intergenomics. Since August 2011, the project provides members with an up to date genomic evaluations of sires based on a joint analysis of all the genotypes collected around Europe. Later on also Canada and USA formally joined the project making Intergenomics the only example of world collaboration in the exciting new genomic fields.
Specific objectives
Establish an international data base of genotypes for the Brown Swiss populations at Interbull Centre
Develop methodology to estimate SNP effects for economically important traits in each participating country scale using a common reference population.
Establish an international genetic evaluation incorporating genomic information for the Brown Swiss breed
Improve knowledge on genomic methodologies simultaneously at Interbull and at participating countries.
Intergenomics agreement: sharing young bulls genotyping
The Intergenomics project took another important step in 2014. Partner countries shared, until this date, only the genotype of bulls tested with progeny. The goal was to get the widest reference population as possible : around 6000 bulls at the moment !
Since the new agreement signed on April 16, partners also share Intergenomics genotyping of all young bulls. Countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, USA, Canada) who carry themselves the genomic indexing from the Intergenomics reference population are now able to calculate genomic breeding values of all foreign young males that are genotyped in the whole world, with exactly the same method and the same scales as their national index.
This agreement was possible thanks to the relations of trust between partner countries. It significantly improves the transparency and accuracy of the index of young males, regardless of their country of origin. It is a great advance for the interest of the breed and an increasingly strong genetic progress!
