Status as of: 2020-04-05

Form GE

DESCRIPTION OF NATIONAL GENETIC EVALUATION SYSTEMS

Country (or countries)	Poland	
Main trait group1
NOTE! Only one trait group per form!	Longevity	
Breed(s)	Polish Holstein-Friesian	
Trait definition(s) and unit(s) of measurement2
Attach an appendix if needed	Functional direct longevity expressed as length of productive life (LPL) corrected for production. LPL calculated as number of days between first calving and culling date or last known test date.	
Method of measuring and collecting data	Data from the milk recording system Symlek	
Time period for data inclusion	Calvings since 1995
	
Age groups (e.g. parities) included	All parities	
Other criteria (data edits) for inclusion of records	Age at first calving  between 18-40 months	
Criteria for extension of records (if applicable)	-
	
Sire categories	All bulls with progeny information including domestic and foreign AI bulls 	
Environmental effects3, pre-adjustments 	none	
Method (model) of genetic evaluation3	Direct longevity : ST Sire model, survival analysis, Weibull model
	
Environmental effects3 in the genetic evaluation model	Random effect:
hys – the time-dependent effect of herd-year-season (following a log–gamma distribution). 
Fixed effects:
 age – time-independent effect of age at first calving, with 22 classes including the age<20 months class, 20 one-month classes of age between 20 and 40 months, and age ≥ 40 months as the 22nd class; 
ys – time-dependent fixed effect of year-season (years from 1995 to 2013; 2 seasons: April – September and October – March);
 ls – time-dependent combined effect of lactation number from 1 to 6+ and 4 stages of lactation (<30,30-180,180-305,>305 day) ;
hsize – time-dependent effect of yearly herd size variation, from the current year to the next year (“unknown”, < -50%, -50% to -30%, -30% to -10%, -10% to 10%, 10% to 30%, 30% to 50% and > 50% change);
fat and prot  - time-dependent effects of classes of 305d fat and protein production levels relative to herd mean. 10 classes of production within the ranges set by border points at -50%, -40%, -30%, -20%, -10%, 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50% of herd mean defined separately for first and later lactations. 	
Adjustment for heterogeneous variance in evaluation model	none	
Use of genetic groups and relationships	-	
Blending of foreign/Interbull information in evaluation	-	
Genetic parameters in the evaluation	s2s = 0.046 , h2 = 0.17(effective heritability - Yazdi,2002) 
rho = 2.0	
System validation	Method 2 	
Expression of genetic evaluations
If standardised (e.g. RBV), give standardisation formula in the appendix	Breeding Values (multiplied by -1) are standardized to mean 100 and SD of 10.
Higher standardised breeding values indicate better longevity.	
Definition of genetic reference base
Next base change	Bulls born between 2009 and 2011  with reliability>= 0.50

Calculation of reliability	R2 =
= (¼  *R2bs + R2b – 2* ¼ R2bs*R2b) / (1 –  ¼ *R2bs*R2b)
R2b = Nb/(Nb+(4-h2)/h2) – reliability of bull (based on progeny)
R2bs = Nbs/(Nbs+(4-h2)/h2) - reliability of bull’s sire 
h2 – heritability
Nb, Nbs – number of culled daughters 	
Criteria for official publication of evaluations	Reliability >= 0.20	
Number of evaluations / publications per year	3 	
Use in total merit index4	Yes, 0.1 weight   in total merit index  	
Anticipated changes in the near future	-	
Key reference on methodology applied	Ducrocq ,V., Quaas, R.L., Pollak, E., Casella, G., 1988. Length of productive life of dairy cows. I. Justification of a Weibull model, J. Dairy Sci. 71, 3061–3070.
Ducrocq, V., 2005. An improved model for the French genetic evaluation of dairy bulls on length of productive life of their daughters. Animal Sci. 80, 249–256. 
Ducrocq V, 2004. Illustration of a trend validation test for longevity evaluations. Interbull Meeting, May 29-31. Sousse, Tunisia. 
Vukasinovic, N., Moll, J., Casanova, L., 2001. Implementation of a routine genetic evaluation for longevity based on survival analysis techniques in dairy cattle populations in Switzerland. J. Dairy Sci. 84, 2073–2080. 
Yazdi MH, Visscher PM, Ducrocq V., Thompson R., 2002 : Heritability, reliability of genetic evaluations and response to selection in proportional hazard models. J. Dairy Sci., 85, 1563-1577 
Morek-Kopeć M, Zarnecki A:  Relationship between conformation traits and longevity in Polish Holstein Friesian cattle. Livestock Science. 149,  53–61.
	
Key organisation: name, address, phone, fax, e-mail, web site	National Research Institute of Animal Production
ul. Krakowska 1, 32-083 Balice,
Tel. (+4812) 2588 133,  (+4812) 2588 136; Fax (+4812) 285 67 33 
e-mail: izooinfo@izoo.krakow.pl
www.izoo.krakow.pl	
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 GE

Parameters used in genetic evaluation

Country (or countries):	Poland	
Main trait group:	Longevity	
Breed (repeat as necessary):	Polish Holstein-Friesian	

Trait	Definition	ITBa	h2b	genetic
varianceb	official proof
standardisation formulac	
Direct longevity	LPL	
X	0.173	0.046 sire variance

						

						

						

						

						
						
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.

Form GE	Appendix LO

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

Country (or countries):	Poland	
Main trait group:	Longevity	
Breed(s):	Polish Holstein-Friesian	

Trait	h2	genetic
variance	official proof
standardisation formulaa	
Direct longevity:
	0.173	sire variance:
s2s = 0.046
		
Combined longevity:
				
a	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.