Center for Kvantitativ Genetik og Genomforskning

Dairy cattle production systems are mostly based on using purebreds, but recently crossbreeding has received increased interest. For genetic evaluation including crossbreds, ideally, models accounting for breed specific effects should perform better compared with simple models. A novel single-step best linear unbiased prediction method provides an opportunity to combine purebred and crossbred information when breed specific effects are accounted for. In this study, we applied this single-step method to evaluate two-way crossbred
performance for average daily gain in crossbred beef on dairy. Results showed that the singlestep method, which accounted for breed specific effects, had a higher predictive ability. We conclude that this method is useful in the genetic evaluation for crossbred performance in cattle production system.