On today’s Beef Buzz, Oklahoma Farm Report’s Ron Hays features comments from a recent conversation that Farm Director KC Sheperd had with Luke Bowman, Director of SimGenetic Development with the American Simmental Association to rehash the Simmental Fall Focus event known to provide solid information for producers.
“Fall Focus is a great fellowship option for folks that aren’t in the Junior business,” Bowman said. “We have our National Classic which is the Junior Fan Fare that we have every summer. Fall Focus is a learning seminar for our adult membership tied with our fall board meetings so members can participate in the meetings.”
The event, held in Amarillo, Texas, focused on where the industry is going in terms of the marketing of beef cattle currently and in the future. It featured a great lineup of speakers including speakers from the University of Missouri and West Texas A&M University talking about in-product merit and comparing current beef cattle marketing methods with past ones.
“We had some folks who felt like it was very refreshing because they’ve been living in West Kansas, West Texas, or the panhandle of Oklahoma where all the cattle are fed. They focused on carcass traits for a long time, so they enjoyed what they heard,” Bowman said. “But some folks from the outer parts of the country, like the far East or the far North, where they don’t feed a lot of cattle were trying to connect the dots and see how through the use of high-quality life cycle indexes, they can make genetic progress, and that’s what people felt good about.”
Bowman inferred that at the top of most attendees’ minds was the fact that smaller cows require less feed, so the cow-calf producer is putting downward pressure on cow size while feedlots want to process cows at nearly 2,000 lbs.
“What we are seeing is, more of what Simmental has preached since 1968, when we started, cross-breeding is superior,” he said. “You can half maternal lines, you can use terminal breeds to make cattle that are smaller on the maternal side, but rear a much heavier steer to sell after weaning or at slaughter.”
Since its founding, the American Simmental Association has been a group of truth seekers. “We know that one breed can’t do everything,” he added. “Therefore, we encourage folks to cross-breed, and our herd book is open, meaning we can register cattle of other breeds in our herd book. We want to make people the most profitable that they can be, and using Simmental genetics is always a positive.”
Bowman shared that he likes Simmental genetics because the founders weren’t cow calf producers, but rather people who ran bull tests in Montana so they have always been science-driven.
“Sure we have the show side, and that’s a great way to recruit a lot of juniors into our breed,” He said. “But, really, we put pencil to paper and focus on profit, and that’s our number one goal.”
Coming up soon is the Progress Through Performance Simmental Show Circuit, which ranges from the American Royal to the North American in Louisville, Cattlemen’s Congress in Oklahoma City, National Western in Denver, and Ft. Worth. They have recently added the Dixie National in Mississippi to the circuit.
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.
