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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #422578
Research Project: Increasing Accuracy of Genomic Prediction, Developing Algorithms, Selecting Markers, and Evaluating New Traits to Improve Dairy Cattle

Location: Animal Genomics and Improvement Laboratory

Title: Net merit as a measure of lifetime profit: 2025 revision

Author
item Van Raden, Paul
item Toghiani, Sajjad
item BASIEL, BAILEY - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item COLE, JOHN - Council On Dairy Cattle Breeding

Submitted to: AIPL Research Reports
Publication Type: Government Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/16/2025
Publication Date: 1/16/2025
Citation: Van Raden, P.M., Toghiani, S., Basiel, B., Cole, J.B. 2025. Net merit as a measure of lifetime profit: 2025 revision. AIP Research Reports. NM$9(01-25).

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The lifetime net merit (NM$) index ranks dairy animals based on their combined genetic merit for economically important traits. Indexes are updated periodically, such as at genetic base changes, to reflect prices expected in the next few years. This update revises some methods to estimate trait values and many income and cost variables, such as milk prices, feed requirements, and reproductive options, but does not yet include genetic evaluations for potential new traits. Selection on an index is the best way to improve cows and profit in each generation. The 2025 NM$ index gives more emphasis to butterfat and less emphasis to protein than in the 2021 index due to recent price trends. Cow livability and heifer livability get more emphasis and productive life gets less emphasis due to higher cull cow and heifer calf prices. Bodyweight composite (BWC) gets more negative emphasis because of larger maintenance costs estimated from actual feed intake data, and residual feed intake (RFI) gets more emphasis due to the higher reliability (and standard deviation of predicted transmitting abilities obtained from more feed intake records. The -11% emphasis on BWC and -6.8% emphasis on RFI combine for +17.8% emphasis on feed saved. Relative emphasis on fertility traits daughter pregnancy rate, cow conception rate, heifer conception rate, and early first calving were affected by revised reproductive options. The 2025 and 2021 NM$ indexes are correlated by 0.992 for young Holstein bulls and 0.981 for recently progeny-tested bulls.