INTERBULL EXECUTIVE SUMMARY NO. 2023-4: OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2023

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This executive summary reports the latest information about the Interbull Centre and important decisions taken during the Steering Committee Meetings of 23 November and 14th December, by the Interbull Technical Committee in their meeting of 13 November 2023, and by the Strategic Planning meeting on 26 and 27th October 2023.

Interbull SC Composition:

ITC members

Two members of the ITC will end their term in 2024 and will not renew it. A new expression of interest to become part of the Interbull Technical Committee will be issued in January 2024

Interbull ITC Composition:

Expansion of Exchange of Genetic Traits Service

In recent years, the Interbull Centre developed the capacity for interested organisations to exchange gene test results for various monogenetic characteristics. These mainly include undesirable genetic recessive traits but may also include other favourable characteristics such as polled, beta casein, kappa casein, etc. In general, an accepted external international organization, usually a breed federation, is considered the responsible party for identifying those genetic traits included in the international exchange services provided by the Interbull Centre.

The introduction of the Genetic Traits Exchange services commenced with the Holstein breed and three countries have been participating, namely DEU, GBR and NLD. The Interbull Centre has worked during 2022/2023 with Brown Swiss InterGenomics participants to develop the service for Brown Swiss - in addition to the current sharing of male genotypes and international genomic evaluations. The exchange of BSW genetic traits has officially started during the December evaluation for ITA and CHE. Are you also interested on joining this service for BSW? Simply send a signed agreement (below) to InterbuIl Centre! The following fee will be applied, starting from 2024: €1000 for participation for one breed and €500 for each subsequent breed. Relevant agreements and sections in the Interbull Code of Practice have been updated in line with the above decision a. Description of service (https://interbull.org/ib/cop_appendix_xi.) b. Agreement (https://interbull.org/ib/agreement_genetic_traits_exchange)

New agreement for using of IDEA/AnimInfo

Following the Steering Committee decision to offer the exchange of genetic traits as a paid service, new agreements for the exchange of RED/HOL type and Breed percentage have been created. If you are currently using IDEA/AnimInfo for the exchange of either RED/HOL Type or Breed Percentage, please download the new agreement and send it, signed, back to Interbull Centre. https://interbull.org/ib/agreement_animinfo

Webinars

The IDEA webinars series organized all through the year have been found to be very useful by the users. The Interbull Centre has therefore decided to continue this positive trend and are planning webinars on GenoEX-(PSE and GDE) and PREP during 2024. More information will be provided in due course.

Interbull Services

Dairy evaluations: MACE, GMACE and InterGenomics December 2023 Routine evaluations (2312r) have been completed according to schedule.

Beef evaluations: Interbeef October 2023 Routine evaluation (2310r) has been delivered according to schedule. During this evaluation the first official international results for carcass traits have been provided to participating countries. An extra Interbeef test evaluation (2310t) has also been performed to welcome Norway as a new participating country in the international evaluation for Adjusted Weaning Weight. The first official beef evaluation for Adjusted Weaning Weight including Norway as a new participating country is scheduled for January 2024.

PREP Database: Electronic forms for dairy conformation and fertility traits are now available in PREP (https://prep.interbull.org/). The forms have been filled with some preliminary information currently available. Each country is encouraged to enter such forms and complete the requested information.

Revision of Type of proofs codes:

A new technical working group has been set up in order to review the different type of proofs codes that are currently in place for MACE. Such coding has been set up on the early stage of MACE evaluation and have not been reviewed in a long while. In light of the changes in the industry due to the rapid development of genomic evaluations, the working group will review them to see if they are still appropriate or need some update. Aim of the working group is to: - Review the current coding and assess their relevance - Consider if there should be the need to account for new coding describing new scenarios - Make it clearer to countries on the criteria to follow for assigning such coding - Consider the implications such new/revised coding will have in the requirements for inclusion into the MACE and related services such as GMACE and InterGenomics.

A first report for the working group is expected in May 2024, during the Interbull Business meeting in Bled, Slovenia.

Research & Development:

Interbull Trend Validation Tests WG (Chair: Paul VanRaden)

An enhanced version of the new GEBVtest software was presented during the Interbull Business and Open Meeting in Lyon, in August 2023. The new software will be made available to all countries in February 2024 and their experiences and feedback will be collected and reviewed during th eInterbull meeting in Bled. The official release of the software is expected in August 2024.

New Traits Pipeline (Chair: Gerben de Jong)

The working group has further reviewed the different information provided by organisations in the PREP “other traits” electronic form. A report will be provided during the Interbull Business Meeting in Bled, in May 2024.

New version of MT-EDC Software available

The MT-EDC software was developed by Peter Sullivan (LACTANET) and publicly released in 2008, as a freely available program that could be used by all interested countries participating in MACE, and with the main goal to improve international harmonization of methods used to generate EDC for MACE. The MT-EDC methods are better suited to most national evaluation systems in use today, because most systems use multiple-trait models (Sullivan et al., Proceedings of the Interbull meetings 2004, 2006, 2007). The MT-EDC software continues to be updated when new features and improvements of interest are identified. The most recent updates to the MT-EDC software include the addition of reliability approximation options as part of the free version, and changes to help harmonize calving trait definitions used for MACE, while handling complications related to the use of both sire-mgs and animal-dam models with direct and maternal effects. The latest version also includes an expanded and modernized user manual, refined on-screen help for users, and changes to simplify the generalized integration of MT-EDC into genetic evaluation systems, with increased flexibilities for both the input and output files that are used and created by MT-EDC. The latest version of MT-EDC is freely available for download via either the cdn (https://www.cdn.ca/software/mtedc.html) or Interbull website (https://interbull.org/ib/servicedocumentation).

Meetings

2023 Interbull Annual Meeting and Interbull Bulletin

The minutes from the 2023 Interbull Business Meetings are now available on https://interbull.org/ib/2023_bm_lyon The proceedings from the meeting, which was held in Lyon, France, from 26-27 August, in conjunction with the 74th EAAP annual meeting , have now been published in the Interbull Bulletin no.59 https://journal.interbull.org.

2024 Interbull Annual Meeting

The 2024 Interbull Annual Meeting will be held in conjunction with ICAR from 19-24 May 2024, in Bled, Slovenia. Interbull Business Meetings and Open Meeting are being organised on Monday 20 and Tuesday 21 May 2024. Information about the venue and registration will become available on the ICAR event page https://icar2024.si/ Specific information about the Interbull meeting will be made available on the Interbull event page https://interbull.org/ib/2024_icar_interbull

Season’s Greetings

Toine, Valentina, Simone, Fernando, Katrine, Anahit, Marcus, Carl, Jan-Erik