Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is featuring his conversation from April with Mark Johnson, Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Breeding Specialist, about the 2024 Cattlemen’s Conference, coming up May 22nd and 23rd in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Anyone in the cattle industry is welcome to attend this year’s event, as three main topics impacting the cattle industry will be discussed.
To listen to Part One of the conversation, CLICK HERE!
Johnson said the first panel of speakers on Wednesday, May 22nd will be discussing selection and mating relative to a marketing end point in a beef operation.
“We have known for years that reproductive traits are low in heritability and really respond to crossbreeding in a big way,” Johnson said. “Growth traits are moderate in heritability, and they have moderate degrees of heterosis when we crossbreed. Carcass traits are highly heritable and don’t show much benefit from crossbreeding. Relative to a commercial cow-calf operation that sells their calves at weaning or holds onto them and markets them as yearlings, or retains ownership all the way through finishing, selling them on a carcass-value basis, what are the things we should be looking at in a selection and mating program relative to creating profit potential in our operation?”
Johnson said the speakers invited to discuss this topic are extremely knowledgeable of the relationship between mating and one’s marketing endpoint, as they come from a successful background in different parts of the beef industry.
“Based on this topic, Dr. Peel and I are working with scientists from the meat animal research center and taking some of that data collected up there in Nebraska over time, and are going to do an economic simulation to look at how additive genetic merit, and hybrid vigor, relative to different marketing endpoints works,” Johnson said.
The first afternoon of Cattlemen’s Conference will focus on the carbon footprint of beef, featuring Dr. Jayson Roundtree of Michigan State University and regenerative ranching will be discussed with Hugh Aljoe at the Noble Research Institute. Wednesday evening at the banquet, a third topic will be discussed- gene editing with Dr. Alison Van Enennaam at the University of California-Davis.
To see the full schedule of speakers for both days, CLICK HERE.
To learn more about the conference and register, CLICK HERE!
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
