CAITHNESS-based William Mill and his parents, Russell and Mary's Forsie Charolais herd has won this year's Harman Charolais Genetic Improvement award for making the greatest progress amongst the breed’s Scottish herds over the past 12 months.

Herd progress was measured by the highest improvement in the Self Replacing Index (SRI) for the calves born in 2015, and recorded over the 2015/2016 recording years. During that period, the 40-cow Forsie herd SRI increased by 9.1 points to an average SRI of +43.9.

William Mill said the business introduced the herd to Breedplan performance recording as an additional selection tool six years ago, not only for their own purposes, but to also meet the demand from customers. As a result, the farm tends to sell all its bulls privately to suckler producers.

"Breedplan data does what it says on the tin and has helped to take the herd to a new level, said William Mill.

"Our big leap in the herd’s most recent progress is down to the Stirling junior champion, Goldies Hotspur which we selected for his high calving ease direct and muscle score EBVs. He is also within the breed’s top 5% for TI and SRI score. We’ve used him wholesale across the herd and he has definitely proved his worth. His calves have been easily calved, and we have the best string of bulls for a long while as well as a number of quality heifers – we’ll use their accompanying Breedplan data to help select our replacements.”

The winning members for England are BA and PT Heath, of the Sackville herd with a 12-month SRI improvement of +9.9 to an average SRI of +52.6; Wales: Gareth Jones of the Esgob herd, +2.4 to an average SRI of +41.8; and in Northern Ireland, Harold Stubbs and Alan Burleigh led the way +5.4 to an average SRI of +32.5.