CITATION FOR ELECTION OF HONORARY LIFE MEMBER

JOHN NEIL CLARKE,
M.Agr.Sc. (N.Z.), Ph.D. (Edinburgh)

Neil Clarke has devoted his career to the development of knowledge in genetics and to its application for the improvement of our national sheep flock. He has an international reputation with regard to sheep breed comparisons, improving sheep growth and carcass composition, and modifying the quality of their wool. Neil is well-known for his close involvement in the development and support of national sheep improvement strategies. He has been a prolific presenter at the New Zealand Society of Animal Production Conferences as well as taking his turn on the Management Committee between 1976 and 1978.

Neil was born in Palmerston North with a noteworthy pedigree in agricultural research and sheep improvement. His father, E.A. (Ted) Clarke, had variously been Head of Sheep Husbandry at Massey Agricultural College, Superintendent at Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station and Director of the Sheep and Wool Division of the Department of Agriculture, as well as a foundation member of this Society.

Neil graduated from Massey University with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree in 1959 and, after 2 years back on the family farm, returned to Massey in 1962. Having been awarded a New Zealand Wool Board Scholarship, he undertook work for a Master of Agricultural Science in the Sheep Husbandry Department. He was awarded the degree with First Class Honours in 1963 and in that year joined the Genetics Section at Ruakura Animal Research Station. In 1966 he was awarded a National Research Fellowship for post-graduate study at the Institute of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh and gained his Ph.D. degree there, his thesis being a study of the genetics of growth and body composition in mice.

Dr Clarke returned to Ruakura in 1969 and became heavily involved in the design, establishment, integration and analysis of a number of long-term sheep breeding research projects. He played a major role in the importation of exotic sheep breeds from Britain in 1972 and in the initiation and co-ordination of research projects and facilities for their evaluation in comparison with local breeds and crosses. The termination of this project in 1978, due to a suspected disease outbreak, was a bitter blow to Neil and his colleagues. However, from the ashes he developed the large Romney Strain Trial at Rotomahana, which became an industry focus for sheep breeding research for almost the next 10 years.

Neil's activities at Ruakura have encompassed four main areas of the application of genetic knowledge to livestock improvement; namely, defining breeding objectives for genetic improvement; comparing families, strains and breeds for genetic merit; assessing alternative mating plans; and disseminating research information to industry. He became leader of the Ruakura Genetics Section in 1978 and, from that time, he became increasingly involved in co-ordinating government funded research in animal breeding, developing national improvement programmes and establishing training programmes to further industry adoption of animal breeding principles. Neil also made a very significant contribution in encouraging and participating in collaborative projects with scientists in other disciplines, especially in nutrition, physiology and meat, wool and veterinary science. His success in this area stemmed from his obvious professional competence, as well as his pleasant personality, his humour, his enthusiasm and his concern for people.

Neil was again the driving force in 1984 for a second exotic sheep importation, this time from Scandinavia with the importation of samples of the Texel, Oxford Down and Finnish Landrace breeds as frozen embryos and semen. These breeds are now well established in the New Zealand national flock due, in no small part, to Neil's activities.

Dr Clarke's PhD thesis considered the developmental antagonism between carcass weight and carcass fat content, using mice as a selection model. Subsequently he was able to apply many of the principles involved to sheep improvement, stimulated by the interest in the early 1980's of concurrently increasing carcass weight and decreasing fat content. Neil undertook considerable research on breed comparisons with respect to growth and carcass composition, and later, aided by the development of ultrasound techniques for measuring muscle and fat depths, developed index procedures for partitioning and therefore controlling the simultaneous improvement of lean growth and carcass fatness. These indexes were rapidly adopted in the national performance recording scheme.

Neil's interest in breed comparisons and in selection naturally led him to become a major contributor to the investigation of the genetic nature of wool bulk, and its improvement by selection and introgression through crossbreeding. While his initial investigations used Perendale sheep, the work ultimately led to the development of GrowBulk sheep. This genotype has since been released to a joint venture of ram breeders for incorporating into their selection programmes and dissemination to industry.

Despite his retirement from AgResearch in March 2000, Neil continues to be closely involved with the development of technical aspects of Sheep Improvement Ltd. (SIL), the national performance recording programme. His valuable and demanding role as a leading member of the technical committee for SIL, and its predecessors Animalplan and Sheeplan, demonstrates both his scientific ability, his versatility and his concern to ensure that the results of animal breeding research are applied in the industry to maximise genetic improvement in the future.

His published papers, as author or co-author, include Proceedings of the World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production (5 papers), World Congress on Sheep and Beef Cattle Breeding (4), 16 scientific journal papers and 10 Ruakura Farmers Conference presentations. In recognition of his service to the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Neil received the McMeekan Memorial Award in 1986. His presentation of nearly 70 papers, as either author or co-author, at the Society's Annual Conferences would contribute the equivalent of a single volume of the Proceedings.

Dr Clarke was also heavily involved with the Australian Association for Animal Breeding and Genetics or AAABG, dating back to its inaugural conference in 1979. He was a key speaker at the 1985 meeting, and was instrumental, as President, in organising the very successful AAABG Conference held in New Zealand in 1990. Fittingly, he was made a Fellow of AAABG at their 2001 Conference in Queenstown.

We are proud to nominate John Neil Clarke for Life Membership of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production.

D.J. Garrick, C.A. Morris and R.M.W. Sumner