A BreedPlan ultrasound scanner accreditation course is being held in Armidale, NSW this week, designed to hone skills among practitioners.
The Agricultural Business Research Institute is hosting the course, with about 15 scanners from NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia in attendance. The course concludes tomorrow, Wednesday 12 March.
Scanners attending the course include a mix of experienced ultrasound scanning technicians, many of whom have been scanning for 15 or more years, and less experienced scanners who are hoping to become accredited for the first time.
Ultrasound scanning allows beef producers to understand the carcase attributes of live cattle. Data collected includes measures of rib and rump fat depth, eye muscle area and intramuscular fat (marbling). This data is then utilised in the BreedPlan genetic evaluation to calculate BreedPlan Carcase EBVs. BreedPlan has included ultrasound scan data since the 1990s.
For the accreditation course, each scanner will scan 20 head of cattle crush-side. The cattle are then run back through (in a different order) to be re-scanned. Repeatability is a key component of the scanning accreditation process.
Additionally, each scanner’s results will be compared to a team of benchmarking scanners, to ensure that each scanner is getting accurate results across animals.
Ultimately, the scanning accreditation process ensures that the ultrasound scan data being collected for the BreedPlan genetic evaluation is of good quality, ABRI extension team leader Catriona Millen said.
In 2025 BreedPlan celebrates 40 years since the first genetic evaluation was published back in 1985. BreedPlan is used by beef producers worldwide, allowing beef producers to understand the genetic merit of individual animals for a range of carcase, growth, calving, fertility and efficiency traits. This allows beef breeders to make more informed selection decisions, and identify animals with the best genetics for a given production system.
“The ability to describe carcase traits without having to kill animals was a significant step in the history of the BreedPlan genetic evaluation,” Dr Matt Wolcott from the Animal Genetics & Breeding Unit said.
“As for any trait in BreedPlan, maximising the precision of the performance records collected is critical to the accuracy of the genetic evaluation and resulting EBVs,” he said.
“Using BreedPlan Carcase EBVs to make informed selection decisions allows beef producers to improve the carcase attributes of their animals, which has flow on effects for the commercial beef sector, processors, abattoirs and the consumer,” Ms Millen said.
“Ultimately, it’s about breeding a productive animal with suitable genetics to meet the market endpoint,” she said.
