ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2018, Vol. 49 ›› Issue (12): 2567-2575.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2018.12.005

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The Regional Joint Genetic Evaluation of Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire Pigs in China

GAO Hong1,2, QIU Xiao-tian2, WANG Chang-cun2, ZHANG Jin-xin1,2, ZHANG Suo-yu1,2, WANG Yuan1,2, ZHANG Qin1, WANG Zhi-gang2, YANG Hong-jie2, DING Xiang-dong1*   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction of Ministry of Agriculture, National Engineering Laboratory for Animal Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China;
    2. National Animal Husbandry Service, Beijing 100125, China
  • Received:2018-04-20 Online:2018-12-23 Published:2018-12-23

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to investigate the plausibility of joint genetic evaluation in Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire pigs in China. According to the genetic connectedness, a total of 9 genetic connectedness groups consisting of 39 national nucleus breeding farms from 3 pig breeds were established, respectively. The phenotypic data related to the growth and reproduction traits from 2011 to 2016 were collected. In total, 126 070, 187 975 and 491 350 records of the age to 100 kg (AGE) and backfat to 100 kg (BF), 36 542, 78 409 and 195 031 records of total number born (TNB) were analyzed for Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire pigs, respectively. The genetic parameters and breeding values for single herd and each genetic connectedness group were estimated by REML and BLUP, respectively. The results showed that the heritabilities estimated by joint genetic evaluation were more accurate than single-herd evaluation. Similarly, the accuracy of the estimated breeding value (EBV) was improved as well. Compared to single-herd evaluation, the average accuracies of EBV obtained by joint genetic evaluation for Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire pigs were increased by 20.9%, 11.9% and 17.3% for AGE, 21.3%, 16.3%, 21.0% for BF, and 31.2%, 14.4%, 6.6% for TNB, respectively. With the joint genetic evaluation, the population size of breeding herd was increased, and the genetic variation was enlarged, resulting in the improvement of accuracy of EBV. Therefore, the joint genetic evaluation for genetic connectedness groups in Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire pigs in China is feasible.

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