The CDCB Board of Directors is pleased to announce newly-elected directors and advisory members.
These directors are designated by sector for a three-year term during the CDCB Annual Meeting:
- Gordie Cook, from Holstein Association USA Inc., representing the Purebred Dairy Cattle Association.
- Bill Verboort, from AgriTech Analytics, representing the Dairy Records Processing Centers.
- Pat Baier, from AgSource Cooperative Services, representing the Dairy Records Providers.
- Charles Sattler, from Select Sires, Inc., representing the National Association of Animal Breeders.The CDCB Board and staff express their gratitude to Kent Buttars for his dedication and contribution as a CDCB Board Member for the past three years.The CDCB Board of Directors appointed Juan Tricarico (Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy) and Don Bennink (North Florida Holsteins) as the Non-Voting Advisory Members of the CDCB Board for the year of 2017.Data AccessThe CDCB is in the process of reviewing the existing business rules for data access. The main proposed changes are:
- Reset all user accounts on the industry queries website, moving from company accounts to individualaccounts.
- Access to collaborator’s data should be granted by data providers through bilateral agreements.
- All users would need to commit to online end-user agreements in order to access either collaborator’sdata or CDCB products.
- User permissions to use the CDCB online queries will be defined in two dimensions: type of results andanimal control.
- Preference will be given to individual searches using queries and group files using ftp.
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Health Traits Genetic Evaluations
Research and development of genetic and genomic evaluations for health conditions (hypocalcemia, displaced abomasum, ketosis, mastitis, metritis, and retained placenta) has been successfully completed by CDCB’s geneticist Kristen Gaddis with the support of the AGIL/USDA researchers. A revision of the data-exchange Format 6 has been discussed with dairy records processing centers to ensure a smooth ingestion of health records into the cooperator database. The National Dairy Herd Information Association (NDHIA) is leading the process to obtain farmer authorization for routine transfers of health event data to the CDCB. This project has the highest priority for the CDCB members, and the goal is to release preliminary evaluations in December 2017.
Feed Efficiency
AGIL/USDA has demonstrated the feasibility of publishing national genomic evaluations for residual feed intake (RFI) based on the data generated by the 5-year national feed intake project funded by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), involving several research groups. Additional RFI data on new generations is needed to maintain and improve reliability of the predictions and therefore the CDCB is developing a proposal of a “Sponsored Program for Feed Efficiency Data Collection”.
Gestation Length Evaluations
Following a favorable recommendation from the CDCB’s working group Genetic Evaluation Methods (GEM), the CDCB Board approved the implementation of gestation length evaluations for service sires as an isolated trait (not included in the profitability indices) at the CDCB August 2017 official evaluations.
Public Relations and Promotion
After careful evaluation of the applications received, CDCB has engaged Look East from Gladstone, MO, to conduct CDCB’s public relations and promotion activities. The contact person is Amy te Plate-Church, who has about 20 years of dairy industry experience.
Genomic Nominators Workshop
The first-ever CDCB Genomic Nominators Workshop was held at the Maritime Conference Center, Linthicum Heights, MD, on May 17. About 25 personnel attended, representing artificial insemination companies, breed associations, genomic laboratories and NDHIA. The event objectives were to review the genomic nomination process, exchange experiences among genomic nominators and present the quality certification evaluation procedures to be adopted in 2017.
2017 CDCB Industry Meeting
Save the date!
October 3, 2017, 8:30 AM – 1:30 PM CDT.
Alliant Energy Center on the World Dairy Expo grounds.
