scholarly journals CRC breeding program design, measurements and database: methods that underpin CRC research results

2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 943 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Upton ◽  
H. M. Burrow ◽  
A. Dundon ◽  
D. L. Robinson ◽  
E. B. Farrell

The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for the Cattle and Beef Industry (Meat Quality) developed an integrated research program to address the major production and processing factors affecting beef quality. Underpinning the integrated program were 2 large-scale progeny testing programs that were used to develop genetic, nutritional, management and beef processing technologies to overcome deficiencies in beef quality. This paper describes the experimental design, generation of experimental cattle and the collection and storage of data derived from these straightbreeding and crossbreeding progeny testing programs.


2006 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 183 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Hammond

Strategic directions for the period 2010 to 2020 and research and development needs are considered for the Australian Beef Industry from the breeding sector’s perspective. These are related to the way major technologies are developed for an industry, the current status and likely trends in market development and appropriation of benefits to the consumer, processor, commercial beef producer and breeding sectors. The primary strategic needs identified are: (i) understand the functional biology for the major production environments (supply chain packages), (ii) accelerate the speed of genetic improvement for production environment breeding goals based on commercial sector profitability and the dissemination of superior genetic material to this sector, and (iii) retain and develop the Beef Cooperative Research Centre concept over the period. Tactics for realising each strategy are considered. Rigorously designed industry-level studies based on a genotype × environment interaction approach, involving all major production environments and breeds, have an important role to play, as do the serial development of measuring equipment and procedures for carcass quality and yield, body maintenance, disease management and maternal performance. Information and communication, molecular genetics and artificial insemination technologies, along with formal progeny testing and an extended BREEDPLAN system, will be increasingly used by the breeding as well as commercial industry sectors to more consistently meet particular market demands. Carefully executed progeny testing is a pragmatic and necessary breeding approach for the period, serving a number of important purposes. The beef industry as a whole will need to take more responsibility for its genetic improvement element by: managing the appropriation of benefits across sectors, developing an increasingly effective system of value-based marketing and, for each sector and production environment, a more appropriate program of capacity building. The industry could now usefully consider the further development of its activity to address these longer-term strategic needs.



2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 843 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. M. Bindon

The Cooperative Research Centre for the Cattle and Beef Industry (Meat Quality) was formulated in 1992 by CSIRO, the University of New England (UNE), NSW Agriculture and Queensland Department of Primary Industries (QDPI) to address the emerging beef quality issue facing the Australian beef industry at that time: the demand from domestic and export consumers for beef of consistent eating quality. An integrated program of research involving meat science, molecular and quantitative genetics and growth and nutrition was developed. To meet the expectations of the Commonwealth of Australia, additional projects dealing with animal health and welfare and environmental waste generated by feedlot cattle were included. The program targeted both grain- and grass-finished cattle from temperate and tropical Australian environments. Integration of research on this scale could not have been achieved by any of the participating institutions working alone. This paper describes the financial and physical resources needed to implement the program and the management expertise necessary for its completion. The experience of developing and running the Cooperative Research Centre confirms the complexity and cost of taking large numbers of pedigreed cattle through to carcass and meat quality evaluation. Because of the need to capture the commercial value of the carcass, it was necessary to work within the commercial abattoir system. During the life of the Cooperative Research Centre, abattoir closure and/or their willingness to tolerate the Research Centre’s experimental requirements saw the Cooperative Research Centre operations move to 6 different abattoirs in 2 states, each time losing some precision and considerable revenue. This type of constraint explains why bovine meat science investigations on this scale have not previously been attempted. The Cooperative Research Centre project demonstrates the importance of generous industry participation, particularly in cattle breeding initiatives. Such involvement, together with the leadership provided by an industry-driven Board guarantees early uptake of results by beef industry end-users. The Cooperative Research Centre results now provide the blueprint for genetic improvement of beef quality traits in Australian cattle herds. Heritabilities of beef tenderness, eating quality, marbling, fatness and retail beef yields are now recorded. Genetic correlations between these traits and growth traits are also available. Outstanding sires for beef quality have been identified. Linked genetic markers for some traits have been described and commercialised. Non-genetic effects on beef quality have been quantified. Australian vaccines against bovine respiratory disease have been developed and commercialised, leading to a reduction in antibiotic use and better cattle performance. Sustainable re-use of feedlot waste has been devised.



2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (8) ◽  
pp. 941 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. M. Burrow ◽  
B. M. Bindon

In its first 7-year term, the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for the Cattle and Beef Industry (Meat Quality) identified the genetic and non-genetic factors that impacted on beef eating quality. Following this, the CRC for Cattle and Beef Quality was established in 1999 to identify the consequences of improving beef eating quality and feed efficiency by genetic and non-genetic means on traits other than carcass and beef quality. The new CRC also had the responsibility to incorporate results from the first Beef CRC in national schemes such as BREEDPLAN (Australia’s beef genetic evaluation scheme) and Meat Standards Australia (Australia’s unique meat grading scheme that guarantees the eating quality of beef). This paper describes the integrated research programs and their results involving molecular and quantitative genetics, meat science, growth and nutrition and industry economics in the Beef CRC’s second phase (1999–2006) and the rationale for the individual genetics programs established. It summarises the planned scientific and beef industry outcomes from each of these programs and also describes the development and/or refinement by CRC scientists of novel technologies targeting increased genetic gains through enhanced measurement and recording in beef industry herds, thereby ensuring industry use of CRC results.



2006 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 233 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. G. Colditz ◽  
D. L. Watson ◽  
R. Kilgour ◽  
D. M. Ferguson ◽  
C. Prideaux ◽  
...  

Research within the health and welfare program of the Cooperative Research Centre for Cattle and Beef Quality has delivered important improvements to the Australian cattle industry. Vaccines to assist with the control of bovine respiratory disease were developed and commercialised from Australian isolates of Mannheimia haemolytica and pestivirus (mucosal disease). Our understanding of the benefits of weaning cattle by confinement and hand feeding in yards (yard weaning) has been consolidated, and yard weaning has been adopted as ‘best practice’ for cattle production in the temperate zones of Australia. The importance of good temperament for improved growth rates and reduced morbidity during feedlot finishing, and for adaptation to stressors such as road transport, has been demonstrated. In response to this knowledge, industry is increasingly measuring flight time for use in breeding programs and feedlot management. The risk to meat quality of stressors such as mixing unfamiliar cattle in the weeks preceding slaughter or acute stress in the last 15 min before slaughter has been described. Adoption of these findings through Quality Assurance schemes will assist in assurance for the community and for export markets of the welfare standards of the Australian cattle and beef industry. This review provides details of the experiments that led to these achievements and to some improved understandings of temperament and behaviour of beef cattle.



2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (8) ◽  
pp. 959 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. A. McKiernan ◽  
J. F. Wilkins ◽  
S. A. Barwick ◽  
G. D. Tudor ◽  
B. L. McIntyre ◽  
...  

As a component of the second term of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Cattle and Beef Quality, a project to further test and validate the effects of varying nutritional growth paths pre-finishing and slaughter on cattle of varying genetic potential for meat yield and eating quality was designed and implemented. This project, ‘Regional Combinations’, was a multi-site experiment, using Bos taurus cattle generated at 4 locations across southern Australia. The design of imposing different growth paths between weaning and finishing on cattle with specific genetic potential is common across sites. Treatment and interaction effects on beef production and meat quality were examined within and across sites. This paper describes the experimental designs, generation of experimental cattle at the various sites and the measurements, collection and storage of the data for multi-site analyses.



2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 239
Author(s):  
J.Q. Xu ◽  
G. Weir ◽  
L. Paterson ◽  
I. Black ◽  
S. Sharma

This paper reports on the planning, procedure, results and analysis of a carbon dioxide (CO2) well test performed on Buttress–1, a well located in the Otway Basin, Victoria, Australia. A large-scale pilot study of CO2 sequestration is planned by the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) in this area, which will involve, inter alia, taking CO2 from the Buttress reservoir and injecting it into a nearby depleted gas field. Understanding the production characteristics of this well is important to the success of this pilot, which forms part of a more extensive study to establish viable means to mitigate CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. This general backdrop forms the motivation for this study.Testing comprised of a standard suite of draw-downs and build-ups to determine reservoir/well characteristics, such as the well deliverability, the non-Darcy skin coefficient and the average reservoir permeability and volume.Compared to the wealth of experience developed over many years in testing oil and gas wells, the collective experience in CO2 well testing is extremely limited. The distinguishing features between this test and those of a typical natural gas well test need to be emphasised. Although, in general, flow testing a CO2 well should be similar to testing a natural gas well, differences in the thermodynamic properties of CO2 affect the analysis of the well test considerably. In particular, the non-Darcy skin effect is more pronounced and the wellbore and surface flow can involve dramatic phase changes, such as the formation of ice. Also, since CO2 is more compressible than a typical natural gas, the accurate measurement of the flow rate becomes more challenging. It is also apparent that the use of pseudo pressure, as opposed to simpler methods of dealing with the pressure dependency of key properties, is essential to the successful analysis of the pressure response to the CO2 production.



2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Osborne ◽  
John Guenther

Recent debates in Australia, largely led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island academics over the past 5 or so years, have focused on the need for non-Indigenous educators to understand how their practices not only demonstrate lack of understanding of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, but even deny their presence. This debate has serious implications for the non-Indigenous remote educator who wishes to support remote students to achieve ‘success’ through their education. The debates on the one hand advocate the decolonising of knowledge, pedagogy and research methods in order to promote more just or equal approaches to research and education, while other voices continue to advocate the pursuit of mainstream dominant Western ‘outcomes’ as the preferred goal for Indigenous students across Australia. This dilemma frames the context for this study. The Remote Education Systems Project, in the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation, seeks to explore these and other questions as part of the broader research agenda being undertaken. This project is particularly focused on large-scale questions such as: ‘What is a remote education for and what would ‘success’ look like in the remote education context?’ We are approaching these research questions from community standpoints and perspectives as a critical starting point for these types of debates and discussions. In doing so, our findings indicate that remote Aboriginal community members have a strong sense of western education and its power to equip young people with critical skills, knowledge and understandings for the future, but also a strong sense of retaining of their ‘own’ knowledge, skills and understanding. This presents a complex challenge for educators who are new to this knowledge interface. Here, we offer the concept of ‘Red Dirt Thinking’ as a new way to position ourselves and engage in situated dialogue about what remote schooling might be if it took into account power issues around Indigenous knowledges in the current policy context. This article questions whether remote communities, schools and systems have, in fact, taken account of the knowledge/power debates that have taken place at an academic level and considers how remote education might consider the implications of stepping outside the ‘Western–Indigenous binary’. It seeks to propose new paradigms that non-Indigenous educators may need to engage in order to de-limit the repositioning of power-laden knowledge and pedagogies offered in remote classrooms.



2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 953 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Perry ◽  
W. R. Shorthose ◽  
D. M. Ferguson ◽  
J. M. Thompson

This paper describes the methodology used for the collection of carcass yield and meat quality data from straightbred and crossbred cattle in the Cooperative Research Centre for Cattle and Beef Quality core program.



2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Hocquette ◽  
I. Legrand ◽  
C. Jurie ◽  
D. W. Pethick ◽  
D. Micol

Australia has developed the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) grading scheme to predict beef quality for consumers. This system is comprehensive, accurate and scientifically supported. It is based on the development and the use of a research database with a large amount of data, including the use of a large-scale consumer testing system with cuts cooked in different ways as well as information on the corresponding animals, carcasses and cuts. The system is also based on statistical analyses carried out on this database to identify the critical control points of beef palatability which is indicated for individual muscles and for a specific cooking method and aging time. Experts involved in the French beef industry were questioned about their knowledge and views on the application of the MSA system. They recognised many qualities of the MSA system and it was judged as original, relevant and sufficiently mature in its application, and favouring scientifically based prediction of beef quality rather than replying on tradition and perceptions of quality. It was also thought to be credible, flexible and open ended. However, it was still considered to possess some weak points. Thus, while its development in Australia at the farmer and abattoir level has been impressive in a relatively short time, the final delivery of precise quality grades to consumers is still lacking at retail due to only partial implementation of the system. Its adaptability to France would be difficult due to the complexity of the French beef industry and market. But, the program is uniquely innovative and deserves consideration. It will facilitate awareness and induce much needed changes to underpin the preservation and the development of the beef sector in France and eventually in Europe.



2001 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 1073 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. M. Bindon ◽  
H. M. Burrow ◽  
B. P. Kinghorn

At the commencement of the Cooperative Research Centre for the Cattle and Beef Industry (Meat Quality) participating scientists were encouraged to anticipate the methods and channels that might be used to deliver the Cooperative Research Centre’s research outcomes to beef industry end-users. This important step was seen as the completion of the process, which began with the beef industry issue, leading then to formulation of the Cooperative Research Centre concept, initiation of the research program, completion of research and finally commercialisation or delivery of products and processes to industry. This paper deals with techniques, institutions and commercial arrangements employed to achieve delivery and adoption of diverse outcomes of the Cooperative Research Centre.



Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document