The Beef Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) was established to identify the genetic and non-genetic factors affecting beef quality and other production traits of economic importance.
Funded by the Commonwealth Government, Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) are considered 'Engines of Innovation'. CRCs pull together researchers and industry to develop new products, services and opportunities of immense value and benefit to the Australian economy, industry, environment and community.
Now in its third tenure, the Beef CRC has delivered on its promise of enabling the beef industry to reliably meet beef consumer specifications since 1993.
Some selected outcomes from earlier phases of Beef CRC include:
• The major contribution to the scientific platform underpinning the Meat Standards Australia grading scheme. An independent study by Insight Economics in 2006 indicated the realised net value of MSA to the Australian economy, from a zero base in 1999 when MSA commenced to June 2006, was $244 million or a benefit: cost ratio of 8:1 relative to the total estimated Commonwealth Government funds contributed to Beef CRC between 1993 and 2012. That estimated value does not account for the considerable additional benefits that have accrued to the beef industry and the Australian economy since July 2006 or for the benefits that have accrued to the sheep-meat industry, through their subsequent use of the scientific platform to develop an MSA scheme for lamb.
• A compendium of genetic parameters (heritabilities and genetic correlations) to define the boundaries of genetic improvement of meat quality in beef cattle.
• Definitive carcase and meat quality measurements, based on 12,000 progeny test results, for incorporation into BREEDPLAN. A blueprint for straightbreeding and crossbreeding strategies to improve retail beef yield, intramuscular fat percentage, tenderness, eating quality and feed efficiency of Australian beef cattle.
• Identification of outstanding sires, in seven Australian beef breeds, to enable beef breeders to rapidly improve carcase and meat quality traits.
• The world’s first EBVs for net feed efficiency of sires of steers finished on a standard feedlot diet.
• The world’s first evidence to confirm a strong genetic correlation between cattle finished on grass versus grain diets. (Australia needs only ONE genetic improvement scheme, not TWO.)
• Identification of the relative contribution of genetics, growth path, meat processing and beef ageing to beef eating quality.
• Identification of sire breed effects on beef eating quality in crossbreeding programs for northern Australia based on Brahman females.
• Quantification of ossification score and correlated Meat Standards Australia eating quality scores of Brahman cross cattle finished on grain or grass in Queensland and northern NSW.
• Quantification of Bos indicus effects for inclusion in the Meat Standards Australia scheme.
• Mixing cattle in the days before slaughter results in increased bruising and poorer eating quality.
• World’s first direct DNA marker for tenderness in beef cattle.
• Development of electronic equipment to measure individual feed intake of groups of feedlot cattle.
• Definitive test of ‘flight time’; as an indirect selection criterion to improve tenderness of tropical cattle.
• New knowledge of the relative contribution of genetics and nutritional manipulation to the achievement of Japanese B3 marbling scores in seven beef breeds.
• An understanding of pre- and post-weaning growth checks on ultimate fatness and eating quality of beef.
• New knowledge to prevent acidosis in grain-fed cattle.
• A new hormonal growth promotant technique to achieve prolonged growth increases in Bos indicus-derived cattle.
• Two new killed vaccines against Pasteurella and pestivirus which cause bovine respiratory disease (BRD), both firsts for Australia.\
• A patented procedure to create a mutant version of Pasteurella hemolytica, essential for development of a novel live, sub-unit vaccine with worldwide sales potential.
• New knowledge to ensure responsible recycling of feedlot waste to achieve a sustainable feedlot sector.
• Definitive results to show the effects of hormonal growth promotants on beef eatingquality.
• Education and training courses to create a more skilled beef industry workforce.
• Pre-boosting techniques to enhance performance of feedlot cattle.
• An explanation of the influence of marbling on eating quality of beef.
• New knowledge of the biochemical basis of why high Bos indicus content cattle do not undergo effective postslaughter tenderisation.
• New knowledge of the tradeoffs required in breeding herd performance and adaptation of cattle to their production environments to deliver guaranteed beef eating quality, particularly from harsh northern Australian environments.
• Restricted growth early in life does not compromise beef eating quality at slaughter age. However compensatory growth only partially compensates for the early-life restriction with respect to weight-for-age and retail beef yield measurements. Body composition and marbling are little affected by growth during early life.
• Use of BREEDPLAN EBVs to select sires results in carcases that have the best compliance with premium markets. Sire selection using high accuracy EBVs for intramuscular fat (marbling) and retail beef yield for example, resulted in progeny differences of the magnitude predicted by the EBVs.
• Beef producers can select to improve more than one trait at a time, even when the traits are antagonistically related (e.g. retail beef yield and marbling).
• Responses to selection for BREEDPLAN EBVs are consistent across a wide range of environments and growth paths.
• A legacy of the first two phases of Beef CRC is the world’s most comprehensive beef cattle databases based on fully pedigreed cattle recorded for hard-to-measure traits such as feed efficiency, carcase and beef quality, adaptation to stressors of tropical environments and female reproductive performance. Such databases are essential for bovine genomics research. They underpin Beef CRC’s third term of gene discovery research. They were also the inducement that convinced the US and Canadian genomics researchers to collaborate with Beef CRC, in spite of their significantly greater funding for bovine genomics research. Those collaborations are now leading to significantly enhanced genomics outcomes for the beef industries of all three countries.
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