Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 224: The Mating Mistakes Costing You Thousands — And How Genomics Prevents Them with Martin Ropp

Transcript

224: The Mating Mistakes Costing You Thousands — And How Genomics Prevents Them with Martin Ropp · CattleUSA Daily

0:00
Today we are welcoming Marty Roth on to the podcast.
0:03
Marty is the founder and CEO of Allied Genetic Resources and
0:07
Marty is on today to talk about genomics within the cattle
0:10
industry, which is an absolutely fascinating topic to myself and
0:15
I hope that you guys enjoy it and enjoy this conversation that
0:18
Marty and I had just as much as I do because it was an absolute
0:22
blast. Marty did a great job of taking
0:24
a really complex topic and making it applicable to every
0:28
single cattle operation, whether you are 500 cows or 50 cows.
0:32
Marty did a wonderful job of explaining genomics, explaining
0:35
the need for genomics and what that practically looks like on
0:39
all of our operations. Before we hop into today's
0:42
episode, if you're watching on YouTube, make sure you take a
0:44
second to go subscribe to our channel and like this episode.
0:47
And if you're watching on any of our other podcast platforms,
0:49
y'all know the drill at this point.
0:51
Take a second to go follow the show and rate and review it as
0:54
well. And without further ado, let's
0:56
go ahead and hear from Marty. Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily
1:03
podcast, your go to source for the latest livestock markets,
1:06
industry insights and the updates shaping agriculture
1:09
today. I'm your host, Lauren Moylan, a
1:11
passionate advocate for agriculture here to keep you
1:14
informed and connected. Now let's dive into today's
1:17
episode. Marty, welcome to the podcast.
1:26
We are so excited to have you on today.
1:29
I would love it if you could just start out and share a
1:31
little bit about yourself and kind of what you do in the
1:34
industry. Thanks, Lauren.
1:36
I've, I guess I cut my teeth in the industry when I moved out of
1:41
the swine business, swine genetics business into the beef
1:43
genetics business 1998, which was a good year to leave the one
1:47
and go to the other. I worked for the American
1:49
Scimitar Association for 12 years as their director of
1:53
outreach programs and research, and then moved on to create my
1:56
own business, in this case little group of businesses
1:59
around the Allied Genetic Resources effort, which is an
2:03
LLC with about 110 members, and I manage that LLC and a couple
2:07
of other ones, travel all the time and work in the beach
2:10
genetics business absolutely 100% of my life.
2:14
Today, so exciting, definitely staying busy, that's for sure.
2:18
So on just like the genomics front, when people hear
2:21
genomics, what do they usually think that that means?
2:25
And where does that perception kind of get wrong, especially
2:27
within the beef industry? That, that is a fabulous
2:30
question and we could we could talk about that the whole time
2:33
if you'd like. The genomics business is a
2:35
growing and very, very professional, a scientific
2:40
effort to increase the rate of genomic and genetic improvement
2:44
for the beef business, which trickles all the way from the
2:46
folks that, that create the genetics and, and, and sell
2:49
bulls and, and semen embryos all the way down to the, to the very
2:54
end of the chain. And the consumers. 150, a $160
2:57
billion worth of value creation all starts with genetics and
3:00
genomics. And so that effort has been has
3:03
really ramped up in the last 15 or 20 years.
3:06
There been some pitfalls along the way and certainly some
3:09
resistance from folks that don't like things to change or they'd
3:12
like to be the last source of information.
3:13
And when you get in the genomics world, that is the last source
3:17
of information. We still have to do things right
3:20
and I still have to pay attention.
3:21
I think the things that we can improve genomically yet, but so
3:24
we better pay attention. It's a, it's a road map that's
3:27
that's got tremendous value and it's unbiased and there's,
3:32
there's just some great pieces of it.
3:33
So we use it as a large portion of our genetic improvement
3:36
program for the herds we work with, both commercial and seed
3:39
stock. Careful.
3:40
Wonderful. So unlike the decisions
3:43
Frontline, should genomics be influencing Cal calf operations
3:47
right now? And why do we need to really be
3:49
focusing, You mentioned like it's a scientific effort that is
3:53
completely fact based. There's no opinion in it.
3:55
Why should we be leaning on genomics, on our operations,
3:58
whether they be Cal, calf, stalker, feedlots, all of the
4:01
things like that? I think regardless of opinions
4:04
about genomics, it's absolutely a risk management tool.
4:07
It will keep you between the guard rails out of the ditches
4:09
and move you forward as quickly as you can.
4:12
The more that you understand about how to use the technology
4:15
and how to invest in the technology, the more value you
4:18
can get from it. But there's been a quite a bit
4:20
of resistance, nothing more kind of conversational resistance
4:24
lately about a genomics because it is again, it is the final
4:28
answer. It's, you know, we say, well
4:30
these cattle are fantastic cows and the genomics is yeah,
4:34
they're OK. And the genomics is is right
4:37
more than the marketer. Yeah, definitely.
4:39
So if someone's only going to use genomics in one area of
4:42
their business, where would you suggest people kind of start or
4:45
look to in that aspect? Think and this has not been how
4:49
it's been promoted, I don't think maybe to the level it
4:52
should be. I believe that the use of
4:53
genomics is best used on the cost reduction side.
4:57
We can absolutely measure and do a wonderful job of predicting
5:01
weaning weight genetics. You're the weight growth, even
5:05
highly heritable cargo traits, those things, we can do a
5:07
relatively good job of those just with lots of data using
5:10
EPD's and other genetic evaluation more traditional,
5:13
even the raw dad has got value at that point.
5:15
But when you start trying to reduce costs with more lowly
5:19
heritable traits, reproductive traits particularly, that's the
5:22
value of genomics, really helps increase your ability to make
5:25
wise and smart decisions. Because of things we've always
5:28
talked about like heritability, we say, yeah, maternal traits
5:31
are lowly heritable. That's a little bit of a
5:34
misnomer. It means that we can't describe
5:38
enough of the difference in maternal traits based on
5:41
traditional data recording and and the information like that.
5:45
Those traits are absolute. They're very, very inherited.
5:49
They're just not by definition as heritable.
5:52
So when you begin to to pile in genomics and lots more
5:55
information in the decision making process, those traits
5:58
become much, much easier to select for then they would be
6:02
under a traditional EPD or even a even a conversational basis on
6:07
what good cows are versus not good cows.
6:09
But so those kind of traits again, cost reduction traits I
6:13
believe is where the ultimate value in DNA is.
6:16
We talk a lot about it because we can't improve growth and
6:19
improve marbling, improve terminal trades, sort the value
6:22
of feeder cattle. We can do a lot of those things
6:24
very well. But again, I think the real
6:26
value is in in for trades and for profit trades that are hard
6:30
to evaluate all the way up to like I said, to reproduction and
6:33
health, things like that that are tough.
6:36
We can improve our our rate of We can speed up our rate of
6:40
improvement by using DNA. Yeah, absolutely.
6:42
I think the biggest focus for a lot of producers when they're
6:44
looking at new technology, new tools, implementing things goes
6:48
back to that ROI, right? Like if I can validate
6:51
implementing this in my business and actually have that return on
6:55
investment that I need, then I can obviously validate paying
6:58
for it in the first place. Where specifically do you see
7:02
that money actually showing up as far as ROI goes at the end of
7:05
the day? Again, I'm going to back up just
7:08
a little bit on the ROI piece because the real value creation
7:11
again comes at the cost level. However, marketing reduction in
7:16
cost is extremely tough compared to marketing bigger calves,
7:20
heavier, heavier carcasses, more choice carcasses, kill sheets,
7:24
things like that, that happen fast when you get, we get return
7:27
on those things fast. Cavities, I guess you could put
7:29
in there too. You get feedback about those
7:31
traits very, very quickly to say that we use these genomics and
7:36
568 years from now you'll be so happy with the cost structure of
7:41
your coward and the average age of your cows and the fertility
7:44
and production 568 years from now.
7:47
So make this investment that is a lot tougher sell even though
7:51
it's I think it's for the for the majority of the value is
7:54
going to come in this because those are things that we
7:56
struggle with. We struggle with reducing costs
7:59
from a genetic standpoint and it's easy to push to push income
8:05
kind of trades. It's easy to push those things.
8:06
Most of them are pretty heritable.
8:08
Yeah, absolutely. No, you make some really, really
8:11
great points there. And I think that genomics is a
8:13
facet of the business that is easily adopted by some and slow
8:18
to adopt by others. So what do you kind of say to
8:21
those that are on the fence or have heard about this genomics
8:25
thing are still kind of unsure of what it even is like?
8:28
Just all of those aspects as we move forward and as a producer
8:32
population, try to continue to be more efficient, better with
8:35
our money, better with our finances and just grow our
8:38
cowherd again. I'll, I'll start by saying that
8:42
the genomics business and this is I'm going to be too critical,
8:45
but we shot ourselves in the foot a little bit.
8:48
And I say we, I really wasn't that involved in at that point.
8:51
But even in the mid the early 2000s, we began talking about
8:55
how genomic technology was going to change the way we did
8:58
everything. It was going to be the most
8:59
important part of our selection tools.
9:01
We wouldn't need to do anything else.
9:03
And that technology was oversold for where it was from a
9:06
development standpoint. Today in 2025, that technology
9:11
is caught up and it's 20 years later.
9:14
It is where they promised we would be in two years.
9:17
Probably not that strange with new technology, but it's caught
9:20
up And the value of it now is, is pretty easy to see again,
9:24
whether that's making important improvement in the in the seed
9:28
stock of this nation or whether it's working through commercial
9:31
populations to make better decisions.
9:33
And, and the more precise kind of decisions every other part of
9:36
agriculture with a maybe a couple things I can think of
9:38
that don't, but are really leaning on precision technology.
9:42
They don't make any decisions without all the information that
9:45
they can get. And in the beef business, on the
9:47
genetic side, we still rely on on some things that aren't very
9:52
much that way and on maybe buy a bowl for my brother-in-law once
9:56
in a while, which no one would do that in the corn of soybean
10:00
business. This would do that.
10:02
That would be, yeah, great. I raised some great corn.
10:04
Here's some seed you ought to plant this next year too.
10:07
And so it's it's, it's a different, it's a more
10:09
traditional kind of a system, but we're going to learn more on
10:13
precision agriculture and precision tools like genomic
10:15
technologies. That's just the way it's going
10:17
to be in the folks that do that. Ultimately, you're going to be
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Yeah, absolutely. Precision agriculture is
11:12
something that I'm absolutely fascinated with and as far as
11:15
the new technology goes with it in all facets of agriculture is
11:19
extremely fascinating. And I feel like it's way easier
11:22
to adopt or quicker adopted on the crop side or in a lot of
11:26
different other aspects of agriculture.
11:28
I think it's much quicker to come to the table and be adopted
11:31
by producers. And so I'm excited to see some
11:34
people in the cattle industry really start to be the movers
11:37
and shakers and drivers of that because I think that there is a
11:40
massive place for precision agriculture within the cattle
11:42
industry and within the growth of the cattle industry.
11:45
I'm really curious about the as far as we look at like
11:49
coordinated systems across the entire cattle industry from the
11:52
time that that calf is born to the time that that calf is
11:54
slaughtered. How did genomics and just like
11:56
genomic systems and technology and things like that play a role
12:01
in the entire just coordinated systems across agriculture?
12:04
Another, another really good question because there are,
12:08
there are, there are differences, particularly as you
12:10
begin to become involved in a system, two things happen. 1 is
12:13
you begin to move toward those targets that they've asked you
12:17
to in order to receive the premiums and the value of the
12:19
system. And, and the second part is that
12:21
there are nuances. If you're in a, in 1/2 Wagyu
12:25
kind of a of a breeding system to go into a, that type of a
12:29
beef package, it's a lot different than if you're
12:31
involved in a more traditional conventional kind of a beef
12:34
production system. Again, the good news about that
12:37
is go back to what I said initially, reducing cost is
12:40
never bad. And so we can use the, we can
12:43
use these tools to reduce cost, but we can also again begin to
12:47
do evaluations within those populations to say, hey, this
12:51
isn't just a generic genomic evaluation tool.
12:54
This tool uses data from this system derived from the system
12:59
for a profit and the income standpoint to create a genomic
13:03
tool that's a little bit different, a little more
13:05
specialized to that system and therefore builds profit within
13:08
that system by making better decisions more often.
13:11
The precision mating technology that we're working with now is
13:14
really designed for that. These cows should not, this cow
13:18
should not be bred to that bull, should be bred to this bull.
13:20
And if it's a different system, then that decision might be
13:23
different and we might, we might choose a different bull to fit
13:27
better into that production system.
13:28
But again, I just keep leaning on it because it's a, it's a pet
13:31
of mine. Is that reducing, you know,
13:33
reducing the cost of a cow, making cows last longer, more
13:36
fertile, more calves earlier in the breeding season, things like
13:39
that? Are they're good for every
13:41
system, including including the world.
13:44
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's sometimes one
13:46
of those easy to overlook line items as far as just cost and
13:51
running our operation goes. We know how important a Mama cow
13:54
is in operations. But at the same time, like she
13:57
slipped to a like Lake Calver this year or oh, she did this or
14:02
oh, it's just one cow. And then all of a sudden it's
14:04
10. And then all of a sudden it's
14:05
20. And then all of a sudden your
14:07
whole herd is moving and shifting in a way that you
14:10
didn't anticipate or weren't fully ready for.
14:14
And I think that on the genomic side, it's fascinating that you
14:17
can look at this and you can say here or key indicators within
14:20
your herd of things that we need to move towards or things that
14:23
we need to move away as far as genomics are concerned.
14:26
And how that can then play a role in just the health and the
14:30
longevity of your entire herd. Yeah.
14:32
And there's you're going to the investment in genomics is not
14:36
small when you particularly if you're just starting from
14:38
scratch and you haven't done any before, the initial cost of
14:42
genotyping is a significant cost of the operation.
14:45
So therefore, you know, we try to put together tools that help
14:48
spread that out over more things, try to get more
14:51
information versus just getting a single piece of information.
14:54
Sometimes I hear somebody say, we know this bull's been DNA
14:56
tested. Like, yes, yes, I'm sure he has.
14:59
What, what did you get from that?
15:00
What? What extra pieces did you get
15:02
from? The information was good
15:04
information, but if you didn't use it for some purpose then you
15:07
left most of the value of of the genomic evaluation on the table.
15:11
Yeah, absolutely. You make such a great point
15:13
there because I think in our registered herds, we see that a
15:16
lot, right? Like we do the genetic testing
15:18
pretty frequently in these registered herds, especially in
15:21
our bowls. But are you actually taking that
15:23
information and you're just like, oh, you got the thing in
15:26
the mail, you looked at it, you're like, oh, that's cool.
15:28
And then you put it to the side, right?
15:29
Or is this actually something that you are then taking the
15:32
information and implementing it into your operation in
15:35
strategic, practical ways? Because sometimes it's easy to
15:38
look at the information and be like, that's cool, and then just
15:41
kind of put it to the side rather than actually sit down
15:44
with someone and start applying it to your operation.
15:47
Almost all of the initial large scale genomic evaluation was
15:51
done on bulls because they would use that information to market
15:54
the bulls, even though that bull, you know, lived on their
15:58
place for 14 months and his sister was there for 10 years.
16:02
And so the investment in genomics on the maternal side
16:04
and on the on the female selection side, people figured
16:07
that out fairly quickly. And and that's again that's
16:09
where the long term value is. The short term, there is some
16:11
bang for your buck in trying to find the ideal, the better sires
16:15
among a group, remember that half of them are better than you
16:18
think and half of them are poor than.
16:19
But the investment on the maternal side is where the long
16:22
term returns come from. So if people are like kind of
16:25
just getting into the genomic side, do you recommend that they
16:28
start on the female side rather than testing their bowls or how
16:31
do you kind of recommend approaching this beast of an
16:36
investment and just beast of a thing to start putting into your
16:38
operation? Well, first of all, on, on the
16:40
commercial side, absolute absolutely testing the cows,
16:44
starting with the young females, the younger females, they're
16:46
going to be around longer. Your investment in genomics
16:48
makes more different, you know, over spread out over 5-6 or ten
16:51
years is better than in the older cows.
16:53
So if you're trying to budget that kind of thing of the
16:55
replacement heifers, bred heifers, 2-3 year olds.
16:58
So that's where you put your first money on the seed stock
17:01
side, really. I, I'm probably in trouble some
17:04
of my friends, but I don't, I don't believe you're in the seed
17:06
stock business if you're not testing all of them, the female
17:10
potential replacement females, the bulls, the more information
17:13
that you put in with phenotypes because we have to continue to
17:16
have new phenotypes to have better genomic evaluations is
17:19
that actually the genomic evaluation learns, it learns
17:22
from the data that we turn in. So if you're not testing all the
17:25
bulls and all the females, you're just plodding along in
17:28
the seed stock business and you're really not really not
17:30
doing as much. You're really not doing your job
17:32
to the extent that I think that the rest of the industry needs
17:34
you to do your job, and that is to take advantage of all the
17:37
technologies and do the best that you can.
17:39
Yeah, absolutely. So as we look forward and
17:42
genomics over the next 5-10, fifteen years, what are kind of
17:45
your thoughts on how this is going to start being used in the
17:49
industry, implemented within businesses?
17:52
What is your ideal future look like?
17:54
All the things like that. I think again it all it all goes
17:57
back to the seed stock business because those decisions really
18:01
the decisions that they're making right now are going to
18:03
have a 20 year impact on the beef business.
18:06
And so for seed stock organization or seed stock
18:08
producers to employed as much information against just another
18:12
source source of information, but as much information as they
18:15
possibly can to reduce costs and enhance enhance income that
18:20
they've got to be the ones that are all in with the latest in
18:23
evaluations. That being said, commercial
18:25
herds from a decision making standpoint are becoming more and
18:29
more tied to using genomic information.
18:31
While that's in the selection of the bulls, in the sorting of the
18:34
replacement helpers, whatever that is, because they're finding
18:37
out that the precision agriculture, you know, they're
18:39
on a larger scale. In some cases, precision
18:42
agriculture on a large scale pays for itself very, very
18:46
nicely and particularly in decision making.
18:48
If you, if you make 5 wrong decisions on replacement Evers
18:52
and you could replace, you could reduce that to one or two.
18:56
And that's a huge amount of money over the lifetime of those
18:58
females. So the commercial herds and you
19:01
see it, you see the kind of the technocratic commercial herds,
19:04
the folks that understand that are diving into those kind of
19:07
tools as fast as they can go to. Then finally, we're beginning to
19:11
look at more precision even on the feeding level or where we
19:14
can sort cattle as they come in saying, you know, these cattle
19:16
here are high marbling cattle. They're they're high growth
19:20
cattle and we can feed them to an end point to fit a specific
19:24
target and really, you know, generate a profit of these
19:28
cattle here are lighter carcass weight cattle.
19:30
They're probably not going to continue to grow to where we
19:32
need them to be in this particular system.
19:35
So we sort of into going another, into another system
19:38
where you know, where their value is maximized or optimized
19:42
based on a different target. And so we got we're going to
19:45
have multiple uses of this technology all the way up and
19:48
down the chain. And again, the more systems that
19:51
get involved, the better chance they have of taking advantage of
19:54
of those kind of tools that we don't we don't think about much
19:57
today, but that are absolutely will be created and there are
19:59
being created. Yeah, absolutely.
20:02
Your Unicorn situation in five years, what would you like the
20:06
industry to kind of look like as far as that goes?
20:10
I'd like to see a huge increase in vision and precision mating
20:13
technologies. Again, it's a little selfish
20:15
because that's one of the things that we do.
20:17
That's one of our core, our core businesses.
20:19
But every time there's a wasted mating costs, everybody involved
20:23
in the ownership of of that product all the way from the
20:26
time that it's born until the time it's harvested.
20:29
And so if we can take advantages of, of more, more wise matings,
20:34
more matings that that makes sense, particularly for the
20:37
target that you want and avoid those wasted maidens, which
20:40
we've known had been there for years.
20:42
I think the slack just in that single technology, the slack for
20:46
the industry will be pulled up tight and we can collect those
20:49
dollars that we've been letting go.
20:51
And when we, we made the, you know, high growth bull, the best
20:55
one we've ever had to our favorite female and we get a
20:58
dud. We've we've chalked that up to
21:01
an environment for a long time. But the more that we look into
21:04
these genomic precision technologies, the more we find
21:06
out, you know, we could have predicted that wasn't going to
21:08
work. So next time, let's do what it
21:10
takes to make sure that doesn't happen again.
21:13
Well, I mean, you look at it on our operations and their
21:16
operations that that's costing them thousands and thousands of
21:19
dollars every single year by taking their what they think are
21:24
going to be their two best mating pairs and getting it
21:26
done. And like you said, I think for
21:29
so often we've chalked it up to environment, which plays a
21:32
massive role. But at the end of the day, it's
21:34
only one puzzle piece in a massive puzzle that we kind of
21:38
need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of
21:41
this and say, all right, so if we step back and look at this
21:44
with a wider lens, what does that actually look like?
21:46
An environment is only one puzzle piece that goes into this
21:48
entire puzzle. So you make a really good point
21:50
there. And I really hope that we start
21:53
as a producer population leaning more on just these precision
21:57
technology, the opportunities that we have as far as research
22:01
goes on our operations, as far as just applied technology goes.
22:05
As we continue to grow our cattle herd.
22:07
Like you said, you made a great point earlier in the podcast
22:10
that the people that start applying these things are going
22:12
to be the ones that are the movers and shakers and drivers
22:15
and the ones bringing the most and come home at the end of the
22:17
day. And everyone else is going to
22:19
get left in the dust. And I genuinely think that if
22:22
we're looking 10/15/20 years down the road, that is a very
22:26
real situation right now. It's kind of one of those
22:30
situations that's like start adopting what works for your
22:33
operation or in 15 years we're going to have a very different
22:37
beef business than what we do today.
22:39
Yeah, Lorne, I, some of my passion for this type of thing
22:42
comes from a history of watching everyone in the pig genetics
22:45
business lose their jobs. We resisted.
22:49
We resisted using technology, even the slow uptake of
22:52
technology. We resisted particularly in the
22:54
genetic side, until one day we woke up and we were not viable
22:58
anymore. And so there's there's some of
23:01
that still stuck back in there. You don't mean you don't have to
23:03
change everything you do all at one time, but taking advantage
23:07
and trickling in new technologies to try to stay at
23:10
least up with the pack is going to be crucial.
23:12
Because like I said, I've watched it before, it didn't
23:15
work before, resisting it completely and it won't work
23:18
now. So I'm rooting for everyone,
23:21
want everyone to have a chance to, to be competitive and, and,
23:25
and be as profitable as they cans for not just for this
23:27
generation, but the next. Yeah, absolutely.
23:30
So as we round out this podcast, Marty, is there anything else
23:32
that you would like to leave with our listeners before we
23:35
wrap it up? I really don't.
23:37
You've done a great job. Get the most invest in genomic
23:41
technology and then make sure you're getting everything you
23:43
can from it, that it's customized to the way that you
23:45
use it to the breeding objectives that you have.
23:48
And that may be a system you have or your customers,
23:51
customers have so that your product is again that it
23:55
contributes to the $160 billion of gross income for the beef
23:59
business and the 1,000,000 jobs that the beef business creates.
24:03
All those things are dependent on making good genetic decisions
24:06
so that so that everybody can get their piece of the pie and
24:09
make a little more money. Absolutely.
24:11
Well Marty, thank you for your time today.
24:12
We really appreciate it. To all of our listeners, if you
24:15
want to get a hold of Marty, his team, learn more about this.
24:19
I will have all of those links down in the show notes down
24:21
below, so make sure you go check those out.
24:23
Marty, again, thank you for your time.
24:24
Thank you for your passion that you bring to the industry and
24:28
everything else that you shared with us today.
24:29
To all of our listeners, we will see you all next time on another
24:32
episode of the Cattle USA Daily Podcast.
24:34
Have a good one y'all.