Accelerating Genetic Improvement in Sheep by Increased Pedigree Accuracy

Genetic management is a key driver for increased revenue in agri-genomics production systems. The amount of genetic information required for a decision depends on the application. At the low end is genotypes on a few hundred markers for a targeted SNP parentage and the associated reduction in pedigree errors and more efficient herd improvement. Correct parentage assignment increases the success of any breeding program by facilitating linkage of production performance to the correct families to improve estimates of breeding values. At the high end is full genome sequence for high value individuals.

Eureka™ Ovine Parentage Panel is a comprehensive parentage panel for sheep and provides superior power to accurately verify parentage. It provides an affordable next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based panel for both parentage testing and traceability in diverse sheep breeds. The availability of over 3,000 barcodes enables processing of over 3,000 samples in a single sequencing run for fast turnaround time. Thus this genotyping panel may be used as a tool in an ovine breeding and production system that has the potential to increase overall revenue.