INTERBULL EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2022 NO.4

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OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2022

This Interbull Executive Summary covers October to December 2022 and includes the latest information about the Interbull Centre and important decisions taken by the Steering Committee and Technical Committee in their meetings of 3 November (ITC), 17 November and 15 December 2022 (SC).

Interbull Service Fees

Supplementary invoices for the 2022 Interbull, Interbeef and GenoEx services that were not included in the May 2022 invoices, were sent in December 2022.

In line with the policy to review the fees for services offered by the Interbull Centre annually, the Steering Committee decided during its meeting of 15 December 2022 that the fee increase for 2023 will be 3% for all Interbull Centre services.

ISO Certification at the Interbull Centre

The Interbull Centre is ISO 9001 certified since January 2016. An ISO 9001 audit is performed by Bureau Veritas annually. The most recent audit took place on 8 November 2022. Interbull Centre's Quality management system was found complying with the standard, without any non-conformities, and was re-certified for services related to Interbull dairy and beef evaluations (MACE, GMACE, InterGenomics, Interbeef) and data exchange service (GenoEx-PSE).

Interbull Technical Workshop - 14 and 15 February in Rome, Italy

Interbull is organizing a Technical Workshop to discuss topics related to:

• New traits for expansion of the Interbull service portfolio (see also below)
• New validation methods in the genomic era
• Future MACE and genomic pre-selection.

The workshop will be held on February 14-15, 2023 as an "in-presence" event only. The latest information will be available on: https://interbull.org/ib/technical_workshop_feb_2023.

New Traits for Interbull Service Portfolio

In order to progress with identifying the next suitable trait(s) to add to the Interbull portfolio, Interbull Centre has revived the invitation to Interbull Service Users and National Genetic Evaluations Centres to complete the "other traits" electronic forms available on the PREP database (https://prep.interbull.org/). We understand that, in some cases, it may be quite time consuming to complete all possible information on any specific trait. For this reason we ask organisations to only provide information for the list of traits available in the electronic form on PREP, and only limited to the following questions:

• For which breed is the trait evaluated
• What use is made of the data you record (i.e. type of evaluations)
• Clarification on data usage for genetic evaluation (i.e. implemented or not)
• Priority or interest for international evaluations

The results provided will be reviewed and used as a basis for the "New Traits" topic in the Technical Workshop in February 2023. You will be then encouraged on presenting further results regarding such traits' evaluation's status in your country!

Genetic Evaluation Information in PREP Database: Dairy and Beef

Genetic Evaluation Forms for dairy ("GE Forms" and "GENO Forms") and Beef ("BEEF Forms") are transferred -trait by trait- to the PREP Database. BEEF Forms for adjusted weaning weight (AWW) and calving ease (CAE) traits are now available via PREP database https://prep.interbull.org/.

The information from BEEF forms from 14 AWW and 8 CAE countries have in the last half of 2022 been reviewed, standardized and published via PREP. These are the first traits for beef in PREP, after the GE Forms for Production and Calving Ease for Dairy evaluations had been transferred ahead of the launch of the PREP Database in February 2022.

The organisations are now able to review and update the information in PREP. New forms for these traits will, from now on, be updated through PREP only; For traits in PREP, GE/GENO/Beef Forms will not be available in pdf form in future.

InterGenomics - Brown Swiss and Holstein

Improvements have been made to the InterGenomics evaluations for both Brown Swiss and Holstein. Handling of additional information such as AI status of a bull, are now uploaded to IDEA/AnimInfo. Starting from January 2023 test run:

1) the Interbull method for approximation of genomic reliability will be applied to the InterGenomics Brown Swiss evaluation (it is currently already applied to InterGenomics Holstein), and

2) all genotypes (for both Holstein and Brown Swiss) will be handled via the GenoEx-GDE platform, taking advantage of all quality checks embedded in the system.

IDEA

Following feedback from the latest customers' satisfaction survey, a webinar about the different features available in IDEA and the best way to interact with such platform, will be organized during 2023. The webinar will be made for both dairy and beef users.

Interbeef

A research run for carcass traits has been performed during November 2022. Results are under review by the participating countries, with feedback expected by 20 January 2023. The earliest possible official routine evaluation for such new group of traits is targeted for October 2023, pending approval of the research run results by participating countries, and confirmation of their participation.

2023 Interbull Annual Meeting.

The 2023 Interbull Annual Meeting will be held in Lyon, France, in conjunction with the 74^th Annual Meeting of EAAP. Preliminary Interbull Programme:

• * Interbull Open and Business Meetings: Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 August 2023 * Joint EAAP-Interbull Session: Monday 28 August 2023.

The overall theme for the Interbull Open Meetings is: "Innovations in national and international genetic and genomic evaluations".

Registration and other details are available via: https://eaap2023.org/registration/

Season's greetings

Toine, Valentina, Joanna, Katrine, Fernando, Carl, Jan-Erik and Marcus