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Supporting a comprehensive system like ILR2, that is so many different things to so many different breed societies, is a logistical challenge of balancing our all-important client priorities with our own.

This winter has presented additional challenges with a new Covid spike and other winter lurgies that have affected our staffing capacity as well as that of rest of the country.

Despite the challenges, the ILR Support team is a hive of activity as we aggressively strive to support and evolve the ILR systems of our existing clients and implement new systems for the increasing number of new clients.    

We have recently resurrected the ILR systems for two of our previous clients who had left for greener pastures but have now chosen to return. This speaks into the depth of ABRI’s experience in service provision and the benefits of having access to a large and experienced software support team.

In addition to the 170 odd breed society clients we support around the world, we are currently in the process of rolling out new ILR2 systems to 3 new clients in the USA and another in South Africa.

Having successfully rolled out ILROnline ‘member services’ to many of our clients, we are now in a position to begin scheduling the ILROnline ‘public services’ rollout.

Whereas ILROnline ‘member services’ allow members to enquire, add and maintain their own data in real time via secure login, ILROnline ‘public services’ allows the general public to perform real time member and animal related enquires across the society’s database.

The implementation of ILROnline ‘public services’ will mark the beginning of the consultation process that we will undertake with our clients to replace their ‘Internet Solutions’ web systems.

Other busyness involves the migration of participating clients from their on-premise ILR servers to our Azure cloud servers. This being a prerequisite for the implementation of ILROnline among the many other benefits of the cloud.

We are currently focusing our ILROnline ‘member services’ rollout in the United Kingdom with 2 clients in the final stages of system implementation and we have just begun the process for our largest UK client.    

ILR2’s DNA Module is continually being refined and is continuing to evolve as we roll it out to more and more clients and seek to meet their requirements.

We are actively looking at ways to improve our ability to respond to client requests as quickly and efficiently as possible and we look forward making significant inroads in this area over the coming months.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss any aspects of your ILR systems please don’t hesitate to contact our team.

The team at the Agricultural Business Research Institute (ABRI)
would like to extend a warm welcome to Fiona Brierley,
who has joined us as the Manager of Dairy Express.

Dairy Express is a leading supplier of herd management
information services to the Australian dairy industry and is managed
under the suite of products and services provided by ABRI.  

ABRI is excited to have on-board Fiona’s extensive knowledge
and on-field experience of the dairy industry as she takes on
this new challenge. She has held a range of consultancy, farm planning
and facilitator roles throughout her career, even starting out as a dairy
herd recorder. In these roles, she has provided services for many farming
families and businesses including consultancy and farm planning with
NORCO CO-OP responsible for the promotion and development of
on-farm planning to secure milk supply and meet market demands.

Fiona is passionate about contributing to the improved outcomes of
rural communities, businesses, and agricultural industries. Most recently,
Fiona has worked as team leader for The Smith Family where she
successfully led her team through a range of programs, resulting in
the improved life outcomes of disadvantaged children. Fiona also keeps
herself busy as a business partner for a farming enterprise,
which currently runs beef cattle. 

To connect with Fiona please see below. 

Email: dxmanager@abri.une.edu.au
or call: 1800 633 165

iCompete recently scored and ran the National Campdraft Council of Australia (NCCA) team campdraft event, as part of the 2022 Nutrien Classic Program.
 
The participating teams were from Australian Bushmen’s Campdraft and Rodeo Association (ABCRA), Australian Campdraft Association (ACA), Gippsland Campdraft Association (GCA) and Southern Campdraft Association (SCA).
 
This event consisted of three rounds, where each competitor was able to do one run per round, for a total of three runs. The event was held over three consecutive days, with each round resulting in a team winner, and an individual winner. The overall winner and team were announced at the end of the final round.
 
Launched at this event was a new campdraft live scores system, developed by the team at ABRI, and used by ABCRA. The system is available to view on the ABCRA website. ABCRA’s executive officer, Mr Craig Young explains the advantage of using this new scoring system.
 
“iCompete Live Results provides in real-time event scores and rankings while an event progresses. The system is readily available to all, with competitors and the general public being able to stay up-to-date and monitor the progress of the event. Statistics also play a role in analysing the results with statistics displayed on what percentage of runs have fully completed the course to what the highest score for horsework and cutouts displayed. The competitor with the highest average score over 5 runs is also displayed.” Said Mr Young.
 
To take a look at the iCompete Live Results system, please click here. Or to make an enquiry about the software developed, please contact us.

With the recent enhancements to the BreedObject software, the redevelopment of Selection Indexes has remained a strong focus for ABRI.

Selection Indexes are calculated using the BreedObject software that has been developed by the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit (AGBU) at the University of New England. BreedObject combines the BREEDPLAN EBVs of an animal with an economic weighting on each individual trait (based on costs of production and returns on output) to produce a single selection index value for each animal.

At present, several breeds have been upgraded to the latest Version 6 (V6) Indexes within Australia, such as Wagyu, Hereford, Performance Herds, Limousin, Angus, Charolais and Belmont Red. International breed societies that have also implemented V6 Indexes include South African Simmentaler, UK Shorthorn, Hungarian Charolais, NZ Angus, South African Brangus and NZ Hereford. We are currently working with several additional clients to implement these enhanced Selection Indexes for their breed society.

Incorporating Selection Index information into selection decisions takes the hard work out of trying to decide how much emphasis you need to put on individual EBVs when determining which animals, you want to retain in your herd or purchase.

For a thorough review on Selection Indexes and information on the new developments included in the BreedObject software, please take some time to read an article published by SBTS & TBTS, here.

ABRI continues to provide research support to clients collecting genomic information. Dr Brad Crook and Dr Shalanee Weerasinghe of ABRI recently collaborated with three Australian breed clients – Hereford, Charolais and Simmental – to investigate whether certain SNPs were associated significantly with birth and weaning weight records in these breeds.

Results from their preliminary study were reported recently at the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding & Genetics (AAABG) Conference 2021. In this study, they identified a small number of SNPs accounting for a significant proportion of the direct genetic variance in birth weight and to a lesser extent, weaning weight. Since presenting this paper they have expanded their research to include four international Hereford populations, all of whom engage in ABRI’s commercial services.

This work is a continuation of the International Hereford Project undertaken by ABRI. Earlier outcomes from this project were presented by Brad at Interbeef in 2019 and at the World Hereford Conference in 2020. ABRI is also pleased to announce growing interest in the Project from other Hereford populations across Europe.

This ongoing research represents an opportunity for ABRI to assist individual breed associations in making more meaningful use of their investment in genomic technology.

Following the announcement by the Red Angus Association of America in September 2021 that they will be providing herd book registry for gene edited animals, the SBTS & TBTS team have put together a background document on gene editing which may be of interest to you and/or your members.

SBTS & TBTS strongly recommend that any organisations considering the importation of genetic material from gene edited animals and/or their descendants seek independent legal and scientific advice on these matters.

For more information on gene editing, please click on the button below to find an article by SBTS & TBTS, which is available on their website.