He said: “Over the past 25 years Bruce has given presentations all over the world and we were delighted he accepted our invitation to address the club. It was a rare opportunity to be informed about advances in genomics, evaluation systems, inbreeding and the benchmark levels required to attain young sire entry into the AI industry.”

Mr Jobson opened the meeting by presenting his mathematical code for business and marketing success and requested the audience to interact throughout the presentation in order to get a better understanding of the complexities involved with genomic evaluations and sire procurement. Having written the critique on the MOET theory in the late 1980s, Bruce drew comparison with the modern genomic system.

“MOET schemes offered advances in genetics through faster generation turnover based upon two-year old female sibling milk records,” he said. “However, the MOET sibling bull teams were unable to be individually identified in terms of which of the four or five brothers was the superior sire, until the bulls were progeny proven. Today, through genomic DNA screening, we can identify the best available young sires at a couple of months old.

“Taking the MOET theory to its full conclusion would have required using over 60 unproven sires per annum on an average UK herd with followers. With genomic testing, the degree of sire reliability has increased from approximately 35% to 65% for a young unproven sire. The level of accuracy has almost doubled and is the equivalent of having a progeny proof based upon 20 milking daughters. 

“This means dairy farmers can have greater confidence when selecting young bulls for use in the herd. Genomics is not as reliable as having a fully proven bull offering 90% reliability; but the breeder has more information on which to base decisions. It’s a step forward and eventually, we can expect the levels of accuracy to increase further owing to more information being available,” he said.

Farmers using genomic young sires were urged to benchmark sire selection. Individual young bulls or a team of bulls, must be equal to or, above the evaluation of the highest available proven bull. Using the US evaluation system as a benchmark required a Holstein genomic young bull to be higher than current the number one US gTPI sire, Supersire; and be rated above 2715 points. 

The current highest rated genomic US young sire, Modesty, offers gTPI rating of 2879 points and there are currently 60 genomic young bulls that fall into the ratings between Supersire and Modesty, for breeders to consider. In the Canadian evaluation system, this required young genomic bulls to be higher than the August 2015 number one gLPI sire, Brewmaster; rated at 2263 gLPI points.

Bruce raised concerns at the increases due to inbreeding levels within cow populations. He explained: “As generation turnover increases, the timescale ‘window’ of opportunity is reduced and this limits the availability of bloodlines within populations. The breeding ‘window’ is probably down to four months between each evaluation-run. We can expect inbreeding and population relationship percentage increases due to full-sibling or 100% bloodline being widely available at the same time.

“Genomics is delivering increases in reliability and greater accuracy and the August 2015 top seven US gTPI sires were all listed in the top 50 ranking at the time of first release; clearly, the technology is working. It will be interesting to monitor sires emerging in August 2016 onward. This is due to 70% of top 50 US genomic heifers listed in April 2014; and 92% of the top 50 genomic young bulls listed in August 2014 being sired by the same three bulls.”

The presentation and audience interaction also included heifer rearing and potential increases in profitability due to reducing the age at first calving. The meeting rounded-up with an update on the marketing and branding of premium milk brand Free Range 180, which Mr Jobson launched on behalf of founding farmer, Peter Crawford of Peepy Farm, Stocksfield.

Club chairman Graeme Bradley thanked Bruce for his interactive audience address that became a marathon event owing to the immense debate generated by the topics involved. He also thanked Lanchester Dairies for sponsoring the evening buffet and welcomed new members to the club, which is open to all-breeds participation as well as, commercial and pedigree breeders.