Status as of:  2016-04-01

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	JAPAN	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Production	
Breed(s)	Holstein	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Milk (kg), fat, protein, SNF (kg, %)	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Milk Recording	
Time period for data inclusion	Test day records from 1985	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	First three lactations	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Format of animal IDs, and generation interval (minimum 17 mo)are checked. Inconsistent IDs of parents are treated as missing ones.
Sire of cow must be identified.
Records of animals that have calving interval less than 210d (most likely due to incorrect ID) are eliminated.
Allowed ranges of age of calving for fisrt three lactations are 18-35, 30-55 and 42-75 months, respectively.
Records between 6-305 days in milk (DIM) are included. 
Only supervised records contribute to sire evaluation.	
Sire categories	All sires(practically no NS)	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	ST-ML-RR-TD-BLUP-AM	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Fixed effects: herd-test day-milking frequency, lactation curves defined by region-calving month and parity-age at calving
Random effects: lactation curves for PE , lactation curve for herd-year of test-parity	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	Yes, see pre-adjustments	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Unknown parents grouped by sex, country of origin and year	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	No	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	See Appendix GE	
System validation	Only official milk records are used for sire evaluation. Average and SD of  EBV (all/active cows, all/random sampled AI bulls/active bulls) and all effects in the evaluation models are compared to previous run. Animals that have extremely different EBV from previous run are identified. Related records of such animals are checked through to identify the reason.
Genetic trends are checked through Interbull method 1 and 3.	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	EBV (kg, %)	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	5-year stepwise, average EBV of cows born in 2010

2020	
Calculation of reliability	Using  multiple trait effective daughter contribution method (Liu et al., 2004)	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Must have both ≧15 daughters in ≧10 herds for both production and conformation. Recognized bulls by the national dairy sire progeny test program only. Interbull evaluations are published for foreign bulls with reliability >=75(milk) and >=60(overall conformation), however, treated as unofficial.	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	2	
Use in total merit index4	NTP: Nippon Total Profit Index
NTP = 7.2×PC + 2.4×(15×EBV feet & legs/0.390+85×UC/0.201)
+0.4(-100(EBV SCS-2.35)/0.217)
PC( Production Composite ) = 27×EBV fat yield/19.16 + 73×EBV protein yield/13.05
UC(Udder Composite) = 0.17×EBV udder (score) + 0.83×{0.18×EBV fore udder attachment + 0.09×EBV rear udder height + 0.10×EBV udder support +0.24×EBV udder depth + 0.07×EBV teat placement-0.10×EBV teat length-0.22×EBV rear teat placement}	
Anticipated changes in the near future		
Key reference on methodology applied		
Key organization: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	Member organization: Livestock Improvement Association of Japan, Inc
Ohno-building, 1-19-8, Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0031, JAPAN
Tel: +81-3-3561-8561
Fax: +81-3-3561-8165
Web: http://liaj.lin.go.jp/
E-mail: webmaster@liaj.lin.go.jp
National evaluation center: National Livestock Breeding Center, IAI
1 Odakurahara, Nishigo, Nishi-Shirakawa, Fukushima, 961-8511, JAPAN
Tel: +81-248-25-4904
Fax: +81-248-25-3982
Web: http://www.nlbc.go.jp/
Contact: data analysis div. to: j0saburi@nlbc.go.jp	
1) Either: Production (e.g. milk, fat, protein), Conformation, Health (e.g. mastitis resistance, milk somatic cell, resistance to diseases other than mastitis), Longevity, Calving (e.g. stillbirth, calving ease), Female fertility (e.g. non-return rate, interval between reproductive events, number of AI’s, heat strength), Workability (e.g. milking speed, temperament), Beef production, Efficiency (e.g. body weight, energy balance, body conditioning score), or Other traits.
2) Indicate frequencies per category if the trait is categorical and specify transformation of data if practiced.
3) Use abbreviations for most common effects (see document with list of abbreviations at http://www-interbull.slu.se/service_documentation/General/list_of_abbreviations.rtf) and indicate random (R) or fixed (F).
4) Please give economic weights and indicate how they are expressed (preferably in genetic standard deviation units).

Parameters used in genetic evaluation

Country (or countries):	JAPAN	
Main trait group:	Production	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Holstein	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	H2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Milk yield:		X	0.50	563,705 (kg2)		
Fat yield:		X	0.50	857 (kg2)		
Protein yield:		X	0.43	401 (kg2)		
SNF yield:	Soluble-Non-Fat		0.45	3,389 (kg2)		
a	Indicate, with X, traits that are submitted to Interbull for international genetic evaluations.
b	If repeated records are treated as separate traits, provide heritability estimates and genetic variances separately for each trait, as well as for all traits pooled, i.e. for the trait submitted to Interbull.
c	Expressed as follows:
StandEval=((eval-a)/b)*c+d where a=mean of the base adjustment, b=standard deviation of the base, c=standard deviation of expression (include sign if scale is reversed), and d=base of expression.

Table 1: Genetic parameter for milk, fat, protein and SNF yield on 305-day basis with heritabilities on diagonal, genetic correlations below diagonal	
		Genetic variance	Lactation	
	Lactation	(kg2)	1	2	3	Combined	
	1	546,904	0.433				
Milk yield	2	680,290	0.813	0.382			
	3	713,233	0.731	0.971	0.362		
	Combined	563,705	0.911	0.978	0.973	0.500	
	1	736	0.405				
Fat yield	2	1,041	0.843	0.387			
	3	1,176	0.764	0.974	0.377		
	Combined	857	0.919	0.984	0.953	0.498	
	1	374	0.360				
Protein yield	2	490	0.805	0.333			
	3	558	0.677	0.958	0.335		
	Combined	401	0.897	0.981	0.929	0.429	
	1	3,334	0.386				
SNF yield	2	4,134	0.793	0.342			
	3	4,445	0.682	0.963	0.330		
	Combined	3,389	0.898	0.977	0.930	0.448	

Parameters for national genetic evaluations for production traits as provided to Interbull

Country (or countries):	Japan	
Main trait group:	Production	
Breed(s):	Holstein	

Trait	h2a	Genetic
variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Milk yield:
	0.50	563,705 (kg2)		
Fat yield:
	0.50	857 (kg2)		
Protein yield:
	0.43	401 (kg2)		
a	If lactations, or part of lactations, are treated as separate traits, provide heritability estimates and genetic variances separately for each lactation, as well as for all lactations pooled, i.e. for the trait submitted to Interbull.
b	Expressed as follows:
StandEval=((eval-a)/b)*c+d where a=mean of the base adjustment, b=standard deviation of the base, c=standard deviation of expression (include sign if scale is reversed), and d=base of expression.