Estimates of genetic parameters of carcass, morphometric and residual feed intake traits of Nellore bulls using the genomic matrix

• Grant number: 18/17049-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2019
• End date: December 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Genetics and Improvement of Domestic Animals
• Principal Investigator: Josineudson Augusto Ii de Vasconcelos Silva
• Grantee: José Eduardo da Silva Lopes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Brazilian agribusiness has importance in the national economy, because it actively participates in the economic support of the country, responsible for a significant percentage of the national GDP. The beef industry in Brazil has national and international prominence, being the second largest cattle herder in the world, the second largest producer and the largest exporter of fresh beef in the world. Among the national cattle herd the Nelore breed is the most present with approximately 80% of the total. Due to market needs, some alternatives must be adopted to meet the demand for food of animal origin, since the world population is expected to reach 9.8 billion inhabitants. Alternatives related to the management, nutrition, environment and sanity of the animals, besides the adoption of programs of genetic improvement aiming mainly improvements in the indices of production would facilitate this demand. Studies related to genetics are enabling discoveries that will change the reality of livestock, research in the area of molecular biology through panels of SNPs allows to identify genes responsible for traits of economic interest as residual feed intake and morphometric traits, ensuring so the selection of animals that provide genetic improvement of the herd for a much shorter period than conventional methods. To evaluate genetic parameters related to carcass, morphometric and residual feed intake genetic data of 1076 animals made available by the Nelore Qualitas program will be used which were and will be submitted to feed efficiency tests and body measurements in the period 2010 to August 2018. The predictions of the data will be through the programs of the BLUPF90 family, using the genomic matrix to increase the accuracy of the predictions.