A large seedstock operation had bull sales in the spring and fall. I asked the owner, who has since passed away, how he decided which bulls to put in the spring sale and which in the fall sale.

Everyone likes to look at bulls. It s h o u l d come as no shock to anyone who has looked, however, that a bull can get a lot of attention because of his expected progeny differences (EPDs), then turn out to be a dud at the sale. The key point is that he gained attention based on his performance and resulting EPDs.

I met Dr. Good on quite a few occasions at the Saddle and Sirloin Club banquet, where they hang the portrait of one person in the livestock industry every year. It is the highest honor you can get in our business and one Dr. Good had received years ago. My impression was he had a classy personality befitting someone of the WWII gen eration,.

Kris Ringwall had an excellent article in his monthly Beef Talk column titled “Cattle size is different than cow size.” In his article, he expresses that there can be huge differences in cattle size as well as variability in the shape of the body mass.

One can assume similar circumstances existed for most of Continental Europe. However, with the passing of the feudal system and the manors, and the shift to individual ownership, fields were enclosed and better methods of farming became possible.

We are q u i c k l y coming up on show season with Louisville in November and Denver after the first of the year. Many breeds have stubbornly held on to the show ring as their major points of selection while other more successful breeds have moved beyond this more traditional form of selection.

First let's define what ERTs are. This concept came about when Red Angus Association of America (RAAA) passed a strategic plan in 1994 calling for the adoption of 20 EPDs by the year 2000.

There is an old comp u t e r phrase garbage in, g a r b a g e out. The same can be said for performance data and its use to the seedstock and commercial sectors.

June is the time of the year when most breed associations run the second of their biannual genetic analyses, and although the expected progeny differences (EPDs) are released mid to late summer, the analysis is typically referred to as the fall run.

The recent Beef Improvement Fede r a t i o n (BIF) Conf e r e n c e held in Bozeman, MT, was a highlight for anyone interested in beef cattle genetics, efficiency and new technology. For background, beef production is the fourth largest U.S. manufacturing industry with $71 billion retail equivalent value in 2006 (www.