The Register: Would you give us a brief history of the economic selection index in your industry?

Emslie While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when selection indices were first used in the poultry breeding industry, it is generally recognized that “in the late 1940s. . . a few of the breeders began to develop poultry breeding as a business” (Hunton, 1990). Certainly by the mid-50’s, progressive poultry egg breeders were applying index and complex breeding strategies to their selection programs. Subsequently, Cornell’s Dr. Henderson’s BLUP methodology was widely adopted in EPD estimation for many animal species including poultry. The power to use it most effectively had to wait on progress in computing power, a necessary ingredient in the complex optimizing of information from multiple relatives and performance traits. Most pig breeding companies started in the 60s and used selection index theory from the start. BLUP was introduced in the late 80s. Today, the most advanced breeding programs have access to adequate computing power for regular updating of selection indexes. PIC, the pig breeding division of Sygen, for instance, updates EPD estimates twice a day from the latest performance measured all over the world. Furthermore, the potential exists to incorporate selection index estimation within a breeding program that can include mating optimization (PICmate) and the use of genetic markers.