Swine geneticists, pork industry leaders, pork producers, university educators and graduate students gathered for the first ever joint meeting of the Poultry Breeders Roundtable and National Swine Improvement Federation (NSIF) on Nov. 30-Dec. 2 in St. Louis, Mo.
Their goal? To advance and improve the swine and poultry industries by gaining insight and perspective from both industries.
“Innovation is not for the faint of heart,” Tammy Brown-Brandl of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, shared during her session on advanced phenotyping using digital technology.
That’s one of the reasons why the poultry and swine geneticists decided to hold a joint meeting, adds NSIF president Justin Fix.
“We thought it would provide exposure to similar, yet different ways of driving genetic improvement,” Fix says.
NSIF is internationally known as one of the leading bodies in developing and applying scientifically based programs for the genetic improvement of swine.
Fix believes this conference provides leaders in swine genetics the opportunity for networking and cross-pollination of ideas in addition to gaining knowledge and perspective beyond their daily improvement focus.
Here are a few quotes from the conversations that took place at this year’s event.
“We’ve been able to increase litter size through genetics, but we haven’t been able to increase the amount of colostrum the sow is producing.”
-Dr. Kara Stewart, Purdue University in “Pre-Weaning Mortality: Opportunity for Impact”
“Precision animal management is the development of tools for utilizing real-time data on individual animals to aid management decisions. But it won’t replace animal caretakers – it will help caretakers make better management decisions.”
– Dr. Tami Brown-Brandl, University of Nebraska-Lincoln in “Advanced Phenotyping Using Digital Technology: What is Needed and What Does the Future Look Like?”
“Better management interventions to improve welfare propagate detailed and accurate welfare assessment data through the commercialization chain.”
-Dr. Juan Steibel, Michigan State University, in “Automatic Phenotyping for Precision Swine Management and Breeding”
“Production and carcass traits, feeding and drinking traits under disease challenge were moderate to highly heritable.”
– “Mark” Jian Cheng, NSIF Lauren Christian Graduate Student Award Winner
“There are some parallels to the swine industry with what we are doing at Ancestry such as linking commercial pigs to sire line family without pedigree information, identifying relationships among animals with abnormalities and determining nucleus source farm for commercial pigs.”
– Dr. Caitlyn Bruns, Ancestry, “Learning from the Past vs. Predicting the Future”
“Our mission is to make genome sequencing ubiquitous across all species. We’re happy to say that with our partners, the continued enthusiasm, and the innovative desire of this industry, we are delivering cost-effective, high-throughput sequencing to help solve the most pressing agricultural issues. I think it will be an exciting few years to come.”
-Jesse Hoff, PhD Gencove, in “Low Pass Sequence with Imputation for Genomic Evaluation”
“What is the process to achieve product excellence? It’s a cycle of continuous improvement and continuous interaction between the different expertise (on our team).”
-Dr. Raf Beeren, Hendrix Genetics, in “Cross-Specie Genetic Systems: Benefits and Challenges”
More from Farm Journal’s PORK:
What Have We Learned from 50 Years of Making Bacon?
