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!	Health	
Breed(s)	Holstein	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Milk Somatic Cell Score (SCS) = log2(Somatic Cell Count(SCC) /100,000) +3; where SCC is somatic cells per milliliter	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Milk Recording	
Time period for data inclusion	Measured since 1983 (all available records)	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	First parity only	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Format of animal IDs, and generation interval (minimum 17 mo)are checked. Inconsistent IDs and/or parents are treated as missing ones.
Records of animals that have calving interval less than 210d (most likely due to incorrect ID) are eliminated.
Sire of cow must be identified.
Only records from cows first calved at 18-35 month of age.
Minimum 3 Testday record within 305d, one of them must be within 62d from calving.
Supervised records only.	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)		
Sire categories	All sires(practically no NS)	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	No	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	ST FR TD BLUP AM	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Herd*Testday*Milking frequency(discontinuous, F), Calving age in month(discontinuous, F), Permanent Environment(discontinuous, R), Fixed Regression of lactation curve(continuous, F)	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	No	
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. 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 3.	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	EBV	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	5-year stepwise, average EBV of cows born in 2010

2016	
Calculation of reliability	Method in Misztal et al.(1991) J. Dairy Sci. 74:2001	
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	3/3, February, August, November	
Use in total merit index4	NTP: Nippon Total Profit Index
NTP = 7.2×PC + 2.4×(15×EBV feet & legs/0.392+85×UC/0.201)
+0.4(-100(EBV SCS-2.35)/0.217)
PC( Production Composite ) = 27×EBV fat yield/19.41 + 73×EBV protein yield/14.44
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:	Health	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Holstein	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Milk Somatic Cell:		X	0.082	0.188	A=0, b= 1, c=1, d = 2.23	

						

						

						

						

						

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.

Parameters for national genetic evaluations for udder health traits as provided to Interbull

Country (or countries):	JAPAN	
Main trait group:	Health	
Breed(s):	Holstein	

Trait	h2a	genetic
variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Milk Somatic Cell:
	0.082	0.188	a=0, b= 1, c=1, d = 2.23	
Clinical Mastitis:
				
a	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.
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.