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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Genetics and Animal Breeding » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #417462
Research Project: Genomes to Phenomes in Beef Cattle Research

Location: Genetics and Animal Breeding

Title: Tell me again why you aren’t using crossbreeding?

Author
item Engle, Bailey

Submitted to: Texas A&M Annual Beef Cattle Short Course
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/26/2024
Publication Date: 8/5/2025
Citation: Engle, B.N. 2025. Tell me again why you aren’t using crossbreeding?. In: Proceedings of Texas A&M Annual Beef Cattle Short Course, August 5-7, 2024, College Station, Texas. p. 5-17.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Heterosis, or hybrid vigor, represents the advantage of crossbred progeny relative to the average performance of their purebred parents. Long-term projects and ongoing collaborations at USMARC are investigating the expectations for heterosis from crosses made using breeds represented in the Germplasm Evaluation (GPE) herd.Heterosis has been estimated to impact nearly all production traits. In particular, lowly heritable traits such as fertility or health are expected to benefit the most from the use of crossbreeding, due to the advantages of heterosis. Additionally, crosses between Bos indicus breeds, such as Brahman, with a Bos taurus breed are expected to demonstrate the largest effects of heterosis and crossbreeding. Heterosis is one of the biggest benefits of crossbreeding not only for improved production and fitness, but also because 1) it only requires one generation of breeding to see favorable results and 2) there are opportunities to use breed complementarity for additional advantages. The research conducted at USMARC and presented here is intended to be an informational resource for cattle breeders and genetic evaluation providers, and in the future may be integrated into decision support tools such as iGenDec.