Since Otrada and PIC agreed on a strategic partnership last year, there has been a rapid improvement of the breeding program at the Elite farm level. Now Russian pig producers can get the high index PIC Danish Lines animals directly from the Lipetsk region without the necessity to import animals from Denmark. The genomic selection held in Scotland and on-farm testing program provide high accuracy in indexes.

It is impressive to get the results of individually tested Otrada Duroc boars produced in Russia where the index could reach 158 points already, Daily gain (35-130 kg) was up to 1 457 g/d and Feed conversion was down to 1,72 kg/kg.
The table shows a snapshot of the potential of Otrada Duroc boars proudly made in Russia and clearly demonstrates the possibility to optimize the cost of 1 kg of meat produced at the commercial level.

The top 10% of tested Otrada Duroc boars reflects the quality of Profit+ and ProfitMax boars with guaranteed indexes that Otrada is ready to provide to your pig operations.

Table: off-test results of Otrada Duroc boars at Otrada's Elite farm.
Weeks 53-2020/7-2021. For all parameters the top 10% results are shown separately for each trait.

An efficient pig production requires a maximal throughput from production capacities, thus the genetic potential for growth is of primary importance in order to have the maximum economic return of the production system. In order to assess the genetic merit of boars, they are weighed individually at a fixed age with an average weight close to the market weight observed on major markets. The genetic merit is calculated on the life daily gain, even if it is possible to split the growth results into post-weaning growth and test growth.

The structure of the production cost highlights the importance of the feed costs in the overall production costs, thus the genetic potential for an efficient feed conversion is of primary importance in order to optimize the economical return. The genetic merit is calculated on the individual feed intake relative to the test live growth.

The potential of the boars to produce an offspring of high market value is crucial, that is why the lean meat percentage is assessed with Live Scan Muscle recording.

As it is critical to use crossbred animals in real-life environments to improve traits (as wean to finish robustness, meat quality) within customer systems, the pure line data capture is complemented with large-scale data capture in commercial situations (GNX program).
After selection, the semen of each Elite sire is used for 6 weeks on commercial farms to produce around 2 000 finishers from each sire, whose individual performances (Growth, Robustness, Carcass and Meat Quality traits as pH24h, Intra Muscular Fat, Meat Tenderness) will be thoroughly tracked from birth to slaughter. The farms part of the Genetic Nucleus X-Crossbred (GNX) systems have a conventional health status and are spread geographically.

The capture of highly detailed data in Elite farms is of primary importance, as it constitutes a major part of the dataset used to calculate the genetic merit of Elite animals. Otrada aims to capture relevant data with the highest precision possible. The boar production is based on the sole use of semen from Elite approved boars, currently based abroad. These are the main stages of Otrada Duroc test:

A tissue sample for Genomic selection is taken at birth from each newborn pure line boar. The presence of specific markers in its DNA code provides precious information on its genetic merit. The results of the DNA analysis are available before this boar will be off-tested.

30 Otrada Duroc boars per week are selected after the post-weaning period (12 weeks) based on their phenotypical soundness and post-weaning growth. The individual weighing of these young boars is proceeded while transferring them to the test facilities, where each boar is provided with 1,5 square meters of space in order to see a full expression of their genetic potential.

The test pens are equipped with Schauer Pig Performance Testing stations, and they allow to track the daily feed intake during all performance testing period.

At the end of the test, the boars are individually weighed. The carcass yield and the lean meat yield of those boars are assessed with a Live Scan Muscle (Back Fat and Loin Depth are both recorded with a precision of 10^th of mm). Intra Muscular Fat which is a significant trait for meat quality is also recorded. In order to have accurate data, a hydraulic lift is present in the testing pen to provide a flat spine position during data recording.

Finally, an overall phenotypic assessment and a leg scoring are done for each off-tested boar. Only the boars with an appropriate phenotypic quality are selected for further breeding or sales, non-withstanding their genetic merit.

The genetic merit calculated for each boar takes into account growth, feed intake and carcass quality. The data from Genomic Selection and crossbred testing (GNX program) are incorporated to further increase the accuracy of the genetic merit calculated for each boar. The figure below shows the distribution of the above-mentioned parts in index accuracy.

Figure: importance of GNX program, genomics and phenotype data for index accuracy.

We believe that the Otrada Duroc performances and the testing procedures that we described make a big difference in the Russian market for PIC Danish Lines, including Otrada Duroc boar that has a direct impact on production costs. Having exceptional performances of the Otrada Duroc sire line is one of the most obvious ways to improve results at the commercial level in such not simple times for Russian pig producers.