Progressive Cattleman asked a few of the presenters for more information about their messages to be given at this year’s symposium. To learn more, visit the website.

Rick Funston
University of Nebraska
West Central Research and Extension Center

What are you presenting at the symposium?
The impact of nutrition during gestation on subsequent steer and heifer progeny.

What do you hope producers and attendees can take away from your presentation?
Oftentimes, our nutritional management decisions are for an immediate response, such as rebreeding of the cow herd, not considering the effects on progeny. Our research has demonstrated minimal effects on supplementing the cow herd grazing native winter range on rebreeding performance in a spring calving system; however, supplementation of the cow herd while grazing dormant winter range influences progeny performance even before birth.

Milt Thomas
Colorado State University, professor
John E. Rouse chairman – Beef Cattle Breeding and Genetics

What are you presenting at the symposium?
“Sorting through the Science, Marketing and Realities of DNA Tools for Genetic Prediction.” DNA technology is here and we’re using it. It’s kind of like tractors. We started out with the little Ford and now we use these behemoths. And DNA is like that. We started out with genotypes for traits, and now we’re dealing with thousands of genotypes and data.

What do you hope producers and attendees can take away from your presentation?
I think it’s important to have people understand we initiated this process and we’re still in a state of infancy in using it. The use of DNA technology will continue to evolve. The challenge in the beef industry is that it boils down to the question of whether it’s something we can afford and still be useful.

The primary way we’re going to use DNA technology is twofold: For those kind of traits we have EPDs, there’s a marriage between the EPD technology and the DNA technology. Then there are traits that are very economically important, where we don’t have EPDs, such as animal health, grazing distribution and feed efficiency. So for those traits the DNA technology is going to be useful to predict breeding values.

Lisa Elliott
Commodity Marketing Specialist
South Dakota State University

What are you presenting at the symposium?
I will be discussing how to potentially capture added value from genetic management through the supply chain. This strategy will likely require three key components: genetic management, organizational arrangement and market differentiation.

What do you hope producers and attendees can take away from your presentation?
Producers can take away that capturing value from genetic management may not necessarily be maximized, or possible, without complimentary changes in organizational arrangements and market differentiation mechanisms. Thus, there may need to be more communication and collective action among producer groups, and segments of the value chain, on optimal genetic management. 

- From PC Staff news release