Annual General Meeting
The North Island Lowline Promotion Group AGM will be held on Saturday, August 1, at Tartan Farms, Mercer at 1 pm.
Other news
Rockhampton
I recently returned from a brilliant trip to Beef Expo 2009 at Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia. It was a beef cattle only event and anything pertaining to them, which is held once every three years. There were hundreds of judging classes for every beef breed you could imagine especially Brahmans and all their crosses. Philip Worthington from Woolstone Park Lowlines, Rangiora, NZ was invited to judge the Australian Lowline classes. With a few butterflies before the start Philip did an excellent job with some very top quality Lowlines on show exhibited from as far afield as Victoria. The Grand Champion Female was Allambie Beaumont owned by P & R Miller & T Breuer with Grand Champion Male, LikLik Commander-in-Chief owned by C & J Schiller. There were a number of New Zealanders at the Show including Judy, ALCA’s Journal editor, and David Sainsbury. Also helping on a show team young Jess from Feilding High School.
For the first time ALCA had a display site organised by Council member Tim Franzmann with support from ALCA. The site worked well enough and was seen as a forerunner for Sydney next year. On site there were a number of speakers invited to give talks on a number of topics including Pfizer who launched a more accurate GeneStar testing product at the Expo
From Council
A Council meeting was held during Rockhampton week with the main topic being this coming year’s budget. Like a lot of other organizations in these flat financial times your council is aware of being prudent with expenditure but at the same time leaving breathing space for breed promotion and youth involvement who are our next generation of Lowline breeders.
Take note please, I know times are tight but if you pay your sub to ALCA on time during before the end of September it will mean your promotion group will get a refund back to your group to support your groups promotion funding
Sydney April 2010
Lowlines as feature breed for Sydney Royal Show in 2010 is fast approaching. This is a once in a lifetime for Lowline breeders to promote our breed to a worldwide audience. There is a lot to do and organise from council and anyone else who is prepared to put their hand up. Here is a very rough outline of events planned by Lowline Feature organisers.
Show week starts Tuesday 6th April with steer judging. Lowline feature site set up.
Thursday 8th and Friday 9th April speaker’s programmes on Lowline feature site.
Saturday 10th April Lowline judging will take nearly all day. PM, Lowline Dinner, venue at Showgrounds.
Sunday 11th April AM Youth Forum at Lowline feature site. 6.00 PM in main arena Lowline Tattoo Feature Parade.
Monday 12th April rest and tourist day
Tuesday 13th April PM Interbreed judging. 6.30 PM steer carcass results.
Wednesday 14th Junior programme with heifer paraders. PM show finishes.
Kiwi Meet and Greet
I have had feed back in New Zealand if NZ ALCA members can have a ‘Meet and Greet New Zealand Lowline Breeders’ slot in the program. We can have Friday morning ‘Breakfast’ time 9th April. It will be a time to promote your own Lowline stud and meet fellow breeders from everywhere. I don’t see any funds being available to provide any food but if we use the Lowline feature site which is under cover near the Lowline cattle stalls apparently there will be a good food outlet nearby providing all day meals which folk can get ‘breakfast’ from. If you plan on being at Sydney and would like to help and have brilliant ideas on what we could do from 8.00 am to 9.00 am can you let Robert Baird (ph 09 233 6688 or email rob@tartanfarms.co.nz ) or myself know please.
Tours
There will be no official ALCA pre or post show tours. Anyone who wants to do so can make their own arrangements. Robert Baird is looking at some possibilities.
Entries
ALCA wants as many Lowlines exhibited as possible including a large presence in the commercial steer classes. A lot of young people are involved with these classes. Many High Schools have their own teams showing cattle.
Would you like to exhibit?
Would you like to be an exhibitor at Sydney 2010? Consider buying a Lowline and bringing it home after the Show. The Sainsburys of Casablanca Lowline Stud at Kumeu have already bought theirs, Allambie Perfect Princess. She and her week old calf Casablanca Jebel Musa were shown at Sydney Royal this year (2009), won their class and came away with Reserve Champion Senior Female. They will exhibit in 2010. It would be nice to have some other New Zealanders doing the same.
Kiwi kids to join Australian Kids
It is very premature to mention it at this stage but I will, Kay Worthington and myself are hoping to be able to organise and select one or two young New Zealanders to join one of the local Sydney High Schools teams and work in with showing their cattle. The young people would be aged between 14 to 18 years old. They would have to be ALCA Youth members or sign up on Lowlinecountry.com. We believe it would be a great experience for them. More details concerning this to come later.
DNA Testing
I am very aware a number of you have had trouble dealing with GeneMark when it comes to DNA profiling and parent verifying your animals. The main trouble with GeneMark is they have been flooded with work in dealing with hundreds of thousands of dairy animal testing and don’t want to be involved with beef cattle. Other beef breed breeders have had similar problems.
ALCA will now accept Pfizer DNA testing. Pfizer New Zealand Limited, which was established late 2007, is a completely different company from LIC GeneMark. While at Beef Expo I was able to talk with the Australian/New Zealand CEO of the company who happens to be a New Zealander! Pfizer are focusing on doing DNA work with beef cattle and sheep. Many other beef breeds are now doing their DNA work with them.
Requirements
You still have to provide them with a tail hair sample with follicles on them. You must remember when sending your first samples to them that you provide them with DNA case numbers and where testing was done of both parents. This is until Pfizer has built up a database of Lowline profiles here in NZ. In the meantime they have to contact either GeneMark or QLD Uni to get the parent profiles.
Get started early, contact Pfizer and get them to send you their information pack:
Pfizer New Zealand Limited
Ph: 03 477 5920 or 0800228 278
Samples sent to PO Box 5520, Dunedin 9058.
The person dealing with cattle is Lucie Archer. Price per sample is $25.00 + GST
GeneStar MVP
GeneStar testing can be done at the same time as DNA testing for parent verifying and profiling. It is a gene test to evaluate each animal’s percentage of markers to determine tenderness, marbling and feed efficiency all-important factors in producing top quality meat. Some of you may have tested animals under the old 12 marker system. Under MVP system there is a lot more accuracy with 56 markers.
At Rockhampton Pfizer launched an updated product from the original GeneStar system, GeneStar MVP or Molecular Value Prediction.
Interesting Pfizer Talk
At our Rockhampton Lowline site, a talk was given by Pfizer personal explaining the updated system and how Lowline breeders can use it as one of the ‘tools’ to progress the breed past the warm fuzzy stage of breeding, into the commercial world of beef breeding. A number of times we were told our breed has some unique features, which we must not lose and must recognise commercially and maintain our breeding accordingly. Feed efficiency, our smaller compact animals rank near the top with being able to produce from every kilo of feed more kilos of meat. Tenderness is what consumers want in meat. Lowlines generally score well but if you use a bull with a low score your herd can go backwards and the same with marbling. As yet there is no ranking for milk production but Pfizer are working on it. To be improving your herd the bottom 10% should be culled each year. That doesn’t mean sell to new breeders but cull! When trying to build up herd numbers, that’s biting the bullet but we were told that is a great way to herd and breed improvement.
Five hundred tests needed
Once 500 animals have been MVP tested our breed can then come up on the board and be compared alongside other breeds. To be commercially accepted a good number of ALCA members want this to happen for the breed to go foreword. Old marker tests can be updated. If this would be of value to you please contact Pfizer. Update cost $30.00 + GST. New GeneStar MVP test $110.00 +GST.
Contact me
If anyone wishes to contact me about any matter in this newsletter please feel free to do so. In the meantime enjoy your Lowlines.
Sally Yearbury
Publicity officer NILPG and ALCA councillor
Ph: 07 8277113
Email: trgaho-3@xtra.co.nz