Genetic parameters of lifetime wool production
J.N. Clarke, J.OL. Dobbie, S.M. Hickey, K.R. Jones, A.L.
Wrigglesworth
AgResearch, Ruakura Research Centre, :Hamilton, New Zealand
Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production. 1995,
55: 268-271
Heritabilities and genetic correlations were estimated from the selected
and control lines of a 25-year selection experiment for hogget greasy fleece
weight (GFW). The heritability of GFW was higher in the selected than the
control line and in female hoggets (0.48) compared with males (0.32). Inter-
age genetic correlations were less than unity, and higher in fleece weight
selected animals. Average genetic correlations between hogget and adult
records were higher in ewe than ram hoggets. Together these parameters
gave co-heritability estimates (pooled across lines) for greasy hogget with
clean adult ewe fleece weights of nearly half the average magnitude in males
(0.21) compared with female (0.36). These results have important
repercussions to the design of effective selection strategies for improvement
of lifetime wool production.
Keywords: NZSAPAB;
genetic parameters; male and female hoggets; selection; lifetime wool
production
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Last Updated 25-01-1997
