Countries in the early stages of upgrading to U.S. Holsteins will have much greater genetic variation than those with established populations. The National Association of Animal Breeders began a three-year research project through FAS' Emerging Markets Program to uncover why fewer U.S. bulls were showing up on the top 100 list. As with sports heroes, in dairy bulls, age matters. These old bulls were not competing for top-100 positions, yet just having their scores in the data set was affecting the ranking for newer generations. While some analysts seek to improve the accuracy of existing data sets, others are exploring entirely new methods for international evaluation.
Customized software promises to do a better job of connecting data to genetics.