Status as of: 2019-09-04

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Norway	
Main trait group1 
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Production: Milk, Fat, Protein	
Breed(s)	Norwegian Red (NRF)	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	305-day milk (kg), fat (kg) and protein yield (kg)	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Monthly recording of milk, and at least every second month of contents	
Time period for data inclusion	First-, second-, and third lactation data from 1979 onwards	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	First lactation: 18<age in months<38 
Second lactation:  30<age in months<52
Third lactation: 42<age in months<64	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Minimum production level: Min 1 kg at monthly recording
Boundaries on fat% at analysis of contents: Min 1,5%, max 8% 
Boundaries on prot% at analysis of contents: Min 2.0%, max 6,0%	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	Minimum 2 milk recordings with analysis of contents. 
Minimum 45 days of lactation	
Sire categories	One category, AI bulls of NRF.	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	Stage of lactation	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	ST-R-AM	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Year of calving*month of calving*parity, age at calving*parity, days open*parity, herd*year of calving.
Year of calving is defined “dynamic”. Most recent year =calvings after (today-465 days). Years before that is 365*n days.	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	Precorrection for heterogenous variance due to Age at calving * Parity	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	Complete additive relationship with inbreeding. Missing pedigree grouped by year of birth.	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	No	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	Use Appendix GE for heritability/genetic variance estimates; for multiple-trait genetic evaluations, provide genetic correlation estimates between traits separately.
Use also appendices PR, CO, BCO, SM, LO, CA, as applicable, if you participate in the international genetic evaluations of Interbull	
System validation	Extensive checks of data quality, Interbull validation methods 1 and 2	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	RBV. Mean=100, SD=12.	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Rolling average of dairy cows born 3 to 8 years previous to current evaluation. Updated at every evaluation.
Standard deviation based on AI-bulls born 5 to 12 years prior to July 1st 2019. Limits are updated every 2nd year. Next change July 1st 2021.	
Calculation of reliability	Interbull procedure of Mix99.	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Daughters in at least 10 different herds.
At least 70 daughters with phenotype (50 for imported AI-bulls).	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3	
Use in total merit index4	Milk index accounts for 27% in TMI.
Contain: Kg milk (30.66%), pct fat (34.67%) and pct protein (34.67%) 	
Anticipated changes in the near future		
Key reference on methodology applied	MiX99 Development Team (2017). MiX99: A software package for solving large mixed model equations. Release XI/2017. Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). Jokioinen, Finland.  http://www.luke.fi/mix99
Strandén, I., M. Lidauer, E.A. Mäntysaari and J. Pösö (2000). Calculation of Interbull weighting factors for the Finnish test day model. Interbull Bulletin no. 26: 78-79.	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	GENO SA, Storhamargata 44, N-2317 Hamar, Norway.
Phone: +47 95020600
Fax:     +47 62520610
E-mail: post@geno.no
Web site: www.geno.no	
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).

 
Form GE	Appendix PR

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

Country (or countries):	Norway	
Main trait group:	Production	
Breed(s):	RDC (NRF	

Trait	h2a	genetic
variancea	official proof
standardisation formulab	
Milk yield:
	0.277	249532	c=12; d=100	
Fat yield:
	0.213	367	c=12; d=100	
Protein yield:
	0.235	183	c=12; d=100	
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.