By Sheena Coffey,  Stock and Land

Better data and individual herd management pushed Tonga Station, Mansfield, and Te Mania Angus stud, Mortlake, to invest in Sapien Technology software systems.

Despite being different operations - Tonga runs both a commercial herd and trading operation, but is also a member of Team Te Mania - they are able to use the same software programs to make better informed and more efficient decisions.

Managing director of Sapien Technology, Robert Wyld, who developed the software programs used - Koolcollect, which collects data, and Superkool, a central and online database that sorts and backs up all information collected - said the programs provided the opportunity for both stud and commercial operators to manage their cattle mobs on an individual basis.

"They can identify superior genetics in their herd and also quickly identify poor performing animals," Mr Wyld said.

Cattle going through the yards at Tonga Station under the direction of owner Mark Calvert-Jones have their National Livestock Identification System tag scanned and their weight is instantly recorded by software beside the crush.

"We regularly weigh all animals so we can accurately project which will be sent to the feedlot for optimum price," Mr Calvert-Jones said.  "Koolcollect makes our life so much easier".

The software is also used at pregnancy-testing time to record joining status and allows empty breeders to be drafted separately at the time of scanning. 

At Te Mania stud, where record-keeping is a vital part of management, the system allows the stud to quickly and efficiently record information without error.

"Our system enables them to keep full pedigree records and submit that data to Breedplan," Mr Wyld said.  "It makes their job a whole lot easier to record and store that information."

Tonga Station and Te Mania both use Superkool as a back-up facility and central database.

The latest component to the program, Koolperform, has already been used at Te Mania and will be released by Sapien Technology soon.

It will allow Te Mania to collect different types of reports and analyse this data and handle all Breedplan information.

Tom Gubbins, farm manager of technology and media at Te Mania, said the system had been extremely beneficial in the stud operation.

"The system follows the logic of what cattle people do; it works with them," he said.

"It saves us a lot of time and also improves the accuracy of recordings significantly because there is less human error involved in writing the wrong tag down."

By Brian Clancy, The Weekly Times

A LACK of accuracy in breeding estimates is set to delay the commercial release of DNA testing in beef.

This is according to Beef Co-operative Research Centre chief scientist Dr Mike Goddard.

Dr Goddard said the commercial release of DNA markers in breeding values could be delayed by up to another two years.

He blamed the delays on the inability to validate DNA markers against sufficient numbers of cattle with known traits.

Addressing the Team Te Mania beef field day at Habbies Howe, near Seymour, last week, Dr Goddard said meaningful results with sufficient accuracies would require testing against five times the 1000 head currently being researched.

Determination of genetic information using DNA markers was hailed as the centre-piece of the $121 million Beef CRC which commenced in 2005.

Scientists were then hopeful DNA markers would provide a third tool to complement pedigree and Breedplan estimated breeding values.

While EBVs were already used to record information on an animal's performance for traits such as marbling, net feed intake and fertility, the new-style genetic markers would incorporate this information with genome-wide genetic predictions and phenotype information collected by producers.

The scientists were hoping a "chip" containing up to 50,000 DNA markers could be matched or validated against an animal with known traits such as fertility and meat quality.

But Dr Goddard said the DNA chip was too small, and the Beef CRC was looking to a new chip with 850,000 markers.

He was also hoping to validate these markers against at least 5000 animals with tested traits.

The other obstacle for the Beef CRC was the additional cost of the larger chip.

Last December, Beef CRC chief executive Dr Heather Burrow said that on results to date, the CRC was confident it would commercialise DNA markers by 2012, accounting for at least 15 per cent of genetic variation for a range of traits such as marbling, tenderness, saleable meat yield, feed efficiency and female reproduction.

On the latest news that the CRC would be seeking to extend its testing, Dr Goddard agreed the commercial release of meaningful and accurate DNA marker technology to stud breeders was still some years away.