“As someone who lives in the genetic evaluation space, there’s one thing that I see, and it’s that the genetic evaluation landscape is changing,” said Kelli Retallick-Riley, Angus Genetics Inc. (AGI) president, during the Genetic Advantage Symposium hosted at Angus Convention Nov. 1 in Kansas City, Mo. “There’s more data being collected outside of breed associations than ever before. There’s independent companies that are starting to evolve this landscape and rapidly changing the environment that we’ve always worked in historically.”

To stay in the forefront, Retallick-Riley said it all starts with the amount and quality of data and records submitted by breeders to the American Angus Association. 

In fiscal year 2025, Angus seedstock producers submitted 237,000 genomic profiles. 

“Thinking about it from a seedstock perspective, when we give you guys opportunities to use new tools, it’s not the fact that we built them, it’s the fact that you guys will pick ’em up and you’ll put ’em into your breeding programs,” she said. “We don’t make the decisions about how you breed cattle or what tools you use. We’re just merely here to make sure that if you guys have a need, that we can fill that need and make sure that you guys continue to stay successful, independent breeders.”

Also in the past fiscal year, 75% of newly registered animals were genotyped, adding value to the registration paper and making the genetic evaluation stronger. 

For the commercial producer’s toolbox, GeneMax Advantage has seen a nearly 20% increase in sales, speaking to the common currency AGI created for the industry. 

“Historically, we’ve had a commercial heifer test that didn’t speak [directly] to the registered Angus bulls that they were purchasing at your annual sales,” Retallick-Riley said. “Today, our commercial producers have a common language [or currency] where they can go on and successfully select their herd sire candidates in order to make sure they can make the best selection decisions for themselves.”

Looking to the future, Retallick-Riley said AGI will focus on validating the success of tools to ensure they are working in real-world commercial settings. Information needs to flow back to the Angus database, but how will AGI target commercial data and other phenotypes? There may be more questions than answers, but that’s what the 2024 ImAGIne: AGI’s Beef Genetics Forum sought to do — start the conversation.

Rowan said the industry has done a good job on recording easy-to-capture traits with high economic relevance in the registered cattle business. But what about low-hanging fruit in the commercial sector, or those traits that are more difficult to measure, but still affect a cattleman’s profit book? That’s where strategy and implementing technology could help.

“I think that’s where we need to maybe do a little bit of innovating across the industry, finding creative ways to help finance phenotypes or phenotypic collection at the seedstock level,” he said. “…More phenotypes make more accurate tools, and more accurate phenotypes make more accurate tools.”

Rowan emphasized understanding how registered genetics are performing in a commercial setting is important for genetic improvement as a whole. 

“This is also a pathway towards capturing more data from the context that it actually matters where those economically relevant traits, the rubber sort of hits the road,” he said.

Machine learning, artificial intelligence, passive data collection, wearable sensors — these may play a role in the future of measuring traits, but a strategy for sharing information still has to come into play.