Net Merit would have the broadest appeal of the three indexes across the United States, as many dairy farmers ship to markets where protein premiums are paid, but milk is used for diverse product lines. Fluid Merit is designed for milk markets where almost all milk is used for fluid products and no premiums are paid for milk with higher protein content. Protein gets a negative weight in Fluid Merit. Protein is expensive to produce, so it stands to reason that it would receive a negative weight in milk markets where it had no value. Cheese Merit is for producers who ship to cheese plants.
Protein premiums are high in such milk markets.
Milk volume gets negative weight in the Cheese Merit index, while protein receives the highest emphasis of any of the three merit equations. USDA uses Net Merit to determine where active AI bulls rank compared to the active AI bulls from the previous genetic evaluation. Interpretation is straightforward. The previous list is used so that rank percentiles can be calculated along with the proofs and Merit indexes. Rank Percentile is the single most important number published in a bull's genetic evaluation.