Comparison of Breeding Values from Single-Step and Bivariate Blending Methods

Abstract Text:

Breeding values in genetic evaluation are compared between conventional animal model BLUP, single-step BLUP, and revised bivariate blending after genomic BLUP. The data are extracted from the production trait evaluation of Nordic Red dairy cattle. Genotyped bulls with daughters are used as training animals, and younger genotyped bulls and producing cows as candidate animals. Breeding values estimated with the bivariate blending method are shown to match the single-step values. Computationally bivariate blending method is, however, lighter than the single-step method and, thus, can be used also with larger population sizes.

Keywords:

genomic evaluation

breeding values

single-step genomic evaluation