Over the last 20 years, VikingRed has achieved a great genetic increase in production and at the same time an increase in the fertility index. Normally when breeding for a higher production, daughter fertility will decrease since production and fertility have a strong negative correlation (-28% for RDC).
In the Nordic Total Merit (NTM) for VikingRed, production has the highest weight and fertility has the second highest weight. That means that by breeding for higher NTM you will get an increase in both fertility and production.
Positive development in production and daughter fertility
Below you can see the increase for the genetic level in the VikingRed bulls for production and fertility. Production has increased by 26 units while fertility has increased by 6 units. VikingRed was created in 2008 and is the breeding program for the red breeds in Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
Genomic selection was introduced in VikingRed around 2010 and has had a positive impact on the genetic level of VikingRed bulls. Genomic selection has increased genetic progress in fertility and at the same time also sped up progress for production.
