AltaAdvantage: Genetics you can trust

After 5 Years of development: AltaAdvantage is ready for market!

A state-of-the-art fertility evaluation system, an index on health traits, milking speed data and the most accurate and reliable proofs – that’s what Alta delivers to its clients through Advantage. And after five years under construction, Alta Genetics has announced that its revolutionary US progeny testing initiative – the AltaAdvantage program – has moved from Research and Development project to mainstream marketing phase. With it a new era begins where the benefits of the Advantage program are made available for all dairy producers to enjoy.

“This is the moment we have been waiting for”, exclaims Alta’s CEO Cees Hartmans. “I’m extremely proud to make this announcement, since AltaAdvantage is without a doubt the most significant advancement to have occurred in progeny testing in decades. Five years ago, with a determination to supply our clients products they can trust, we took a huge risk and moved from having 3,000 young sire herds in a traditional progeny testing model to partnering with just 170 of the very best. These herds average over 750 milking cows and are among the most progressive anywhere. We moved from a generic uncontrollable approach to a closely monitored system where we could ensure greater quality control of the data. These extremely progressive 170 herds provide us with an opportunity to test bulls the right way and to put trust back into sire proofs,” emphasizes Hartmans.

The marketing launch for Advantage underscores a slow but steady transition whereby daughters of newly proven sires are increasingly located in Advantage dairies. Today the vast majority of daughters on graduating sires can be attributed to these partner herds. Published proof numbers for Alta sires are different from those of the past - not so much in their appearance, but in the confidence producers can place in them.

Dr. Nate Zwald, Advantage Program Manager explains. “We’ve partnered with a small number of the very best US herds to test our bulls and the proof values for those that graduate from this program quite simply cannot be compared to the numbers published for bulls not tested in this manner. It’s an apples and oranges comparison”, asserts Zwald. “It’s all about the data and environment where the daughters must compete”, he continues. “As a progressive-minded dairy producer you’ll want to use proven sires that have been tested under conditions similar to your own. You’ll also appreciate that with Advantage testing Alta bulls are being compared to many more herd-mates, leading to a more accurate estimate of genetic differences. Most important you’ll appreciate that Advantage testing includes DNA verification of daughters before allowing their data to contribute to sire evaluations,” summarizes Zwald. “It’s a much more costly Product Development program to run, but we’re convinced that this is in our industry’s long-term best interest and certainly in our customers’ best interest. You might think of Advantage herds as a control group in a research feeding trial and the daughters of Advantage bulls as the experimental group. The results are every bit as trustworthy.”

The AltaAdvantage program has quietly been generating benefits for producers for some time now. Alta’s revolutionary Conceptplus fertility evaluations are based on real pregnancy data from Advantage herds. Milking Speed data is also being evaluated and soon calf mortality evaluations will make their debut. These ‘workability’ traits and others under development are being incorporated into Alta’s Healthplus index, a popular selection tool already being used by many progressive dairies. Alta believes that today modern dairy producers are looking for solutions to their issues and challenges. Fertility and the search for problem-free cows are core issues for these entrepreneurs. Alta delivers this information and will continue to do more. Noted geneticist, Dr. Kent Weigel, at the University of Wisconsin, Department of Dairy Science, is generous in his praise for the program. “As a researcher, I’m excited about what’s being done with Alta’s Advantage program – it’s a great resource for the industry, not only for the leadership in fertility proofs, but for research into many other important health and fitness traits.”

The AltaAdvantage program is the first of its kind in the industry and is expected to significantly alter the competitive landscape. “With a five year head-start on the competition, we believe this to be a defining moment for us as a company”, states Cees Hartmans. “Revolutionizing the progeny test is just one example of how we can help dairy producers to be more profitable; but we won’t stop there! The Advantage program symbolizes Alta’s desire to lead and determination to deliver results.”

Posted Aug 5th

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