Title: Improved genomic tools for crossbred cows

Funded by: Mælkeafgiftsfonden (Danish Milk Levy Foundation)

AU project manager: Tenure track assistant professor Emre Karaman

AU deltagere:
Senior researcher Ole Fredslund Christensen
Associate professor Vinzent Börner, Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics.

Collaboration partner: VikingGenetics, visiting researcher Jørn Rind Thomasen.

Project period: January 2024 - December 2025

Funding amount: 2024: 868.000 DKK. 2025: TBA

Project description:

The purpose of the project is to improve resource utilization in Danish dairy herds, and provide new methods and calculation tools that will help Danish dairy organizations to provide genomic values ​​for all crossbred animals (genotype/non-genotype) in the population.

The project's objectives are achieved by developing, implementing and testing decision support tools for hybrid animal genomic evaluations. We will:

1) identify the most efficient method to estimate the breed origin of individual SNPs for individual crossbred animals in terms of accuracy and analysis time

2) develop new statistical methods for large-scale genomic evaluations for multiple dairy breeds and crossbreeds

3) test new methods with genotypic and phenotypic data from Danish dairy breeds

4) provide genetic values ​​for genotyped and non-genotyped crossbred animals

The result of the project will be crossbred cows with improved health, fertility and production levels due to increased accuracy of genomic evaluation of genotyped cows, and the possibility of obtaining genomic values ​​for non-genotyped cows.