The Genetic Project Manager with PIC Canada expects the pace of genetic improvement within swine production to continue to accelerate over the next several years.
The introduction of genomics has provided new opportunities to improve the productivity of breeding stock.
Daniel Godbout, the Genetic Project Manager with PIC Canada, says there's lots of developments in the area of genomics.
Daniel Godbout-PIC Canada:
Genomics is basically the branch of genetics that addresses the functionality, the structure of the genes and, at the end of the day, we can break down the genetic material into small pieces and we are basically exploiting that information to make better genetic decisions and strengthen our genetic improvement.
There's numerous applications that are being developed to date and, with the new methodology, the cost of genotyping, the cost of measuring that on a per pig basis has decreased sharply over the past period of time which allows us to use that new science to make better breeding decisions.
As technology develops, genomics will probably provide new opportunities in terms of traits that could be selected.
Source : Farmscape