Abstract:

Unique situations exist in beef production herds that can affect the weighting of traits in an index (e.g. breeding system, economic costs/returns, current phenotypic performance). Given genetic purchasing decisions represent capital investments, the time horizon to determine economic impacts also represents a variable that differs between enterprises. The current study used an economic index construction platform (iGENDEC) to investigate the impact of planning horizon length (PH) on the relative emphasis of traits in the breeding goal for beef production systems. A general-purpose index was constructed for three breeding systems with six different PH (2-50 y). As PH increased, relative emphasis for sale weight (weaning or hot carcass) decreased and stayability increased. Rank correlations between indexes with 2 and 50 yr. PH were 0.72 and 0.64 for weaning and slaughter endpoints, respectively. Results illustrate that correctly determining PH can impact the rank of selection candidates and progress towards improved net profit.