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- Title
How genomics will continue to improve productivity for the New Zealand sheep sector.
- Authors
Wilson, T.
- Abstract
The New Zealand sheep industry has been very successful over the past 15 years in increasing production of lambs and increasing the meat produced per lamb for the export market. This is due to many factors such as better fertilisers, and improved plant cultivars and farming systems. Alongside this, significantly more attention has focused on detailed phenotyping and selection of rams for key traits which has maintained this growth in an upward direction. Genomics has already started to deliver benefits with the discoveries of the causative gene mutations for reproduction genes (Inverdale and Booroola) now having commercial application in certain farming systems. Several other research programmes are close to finding the gene mutations, with many traits fine mapped to regions where commercial strategies can be employed. For the next five to ten years, outcomes from genomic research programmes will be needed to maintain the growth in onfarm productivity within the New Zealand sheep industry. Strategies combining bioinformatics, expression profiling and high density SNP chips soon to be available will offer unprecedented opportunities for the sheep sector.
- Subjects
NEW Zealand; SHEEP industry; GENOMICS; SHEEP; LAMB (Meat); EXPORT marketing; PHARMACOGENOMICS
- Publication
Journal of Animal Science, 2006, Vol 84, p158
- ISSN
0021-8812
- Publication type
Article