Genomic Selection Using Single-Step Genomic BLUP on the Number of Services per Conception Trait in Thai–Holstein Crossbreeds

Abstract

Reproductive traits are important traits that directly affect a farmer’s income and are difficult to improve upon using traditional genetic methods. Therefore, there is a need to consider new options for increasing the accuracy of the genetic selection of dairy cows. The objective of this study was to compare the genetic methods of the traditional BLUP and ssGBLUP techniques in terms of the estimated genetic parameters and accuracy of the estimated breeding values. The data comprised 101,331 services per conception (NSPC) records from 54,027 Thai–Holstein crossbred cows, 109,233 pedigree data, and 770 genotyped animals. A Bayesian analysis via threshold Gibbs sampling was used to analyze the estimated variance components and genetic parameters. The results showed that the means of the NSPC data were 2.21, 2.31, and 2.42 for less than 87.5% for Holstein genetics (breed group; BG1), 87.5 to 93.6% for Holstein genetics (BG2), and greater than 93.7% for Holstein genetics (BG3), respectively. The estimated heritability values were 0.038 and 0.051, and the repeatability values were 0.149 and 0.157 for the traditional BLUP and ssGBLUP methods, respectively. The accuracy of the estimated breeding values from the ssGBLUP method was higher than that from the traditional BLUP method, ranging from 6.05 to 17.69%, depending on the dataset, especially in the top 20% of the bull dataset had the highest values. In conclusion, the ssGBLUP method could improve the heritability value and accuracy of the breeding values compared with the traditional BLUP method. Therefore, switching from traditional methods to the ssGBLUP method for the Thai dairy cattle breeding program is a viable option.