A NEW No 1, seven new entries and the arrival of sons of Cogent Supershot are the headines behind the latest top 10 of genomic young Holstein sires by £PLI.
Straight in at the top slot is Progenesis Unicorn, making his debut with the highest ever £PLI score of £728. An AltaSpring son from a Tango dam, Unicorn excels in daughter fertility (+14.5 Fertility Index) and SCC (-27).
Second in the rankings and just one £PLI point behind, at £727 is DG Charley, the first in a list of long-awaited Cogent Supershot sons to make their appearance. Out of a Mogul dam, Charley combines high production potential (1023kg Milk, +29.9kg protein) with a strong Lifespan score (+0.7).
S-S-I 1Stclass Flagship, an Alta1stClass bred-bull from a Supersire dam, now ranks third with a £PLI of £725 and the second-highest Type Merit in the top 20 at +3.16. He is only beaten on Type by other Alta1stClass son, Silverridge V Allclass, in equal 11th position, which scores +4.24.
Two new Supershots follow in fourth and fifth place with Seagull-Bay-Mj Applejax (£715 £PLI) and Bush-Bros Deify (£711 £PLI) respectively.
High fat (kg) transmitter at +39.7, Triplecrown Gatedancer (Alta1stClass x Supersire), now ranks sixth with a £PLI of £703. He is followed by components specialist Apina Nadal (£698 £PLI), a Rocky son from a Goliath dam.
New in eighth, with a strong score for reducing Maintenance feed cost (-3) is Mr Pre Director (Predestine x Robust) with a £PLI of £697.
Two more Supershot sons take ninth and tenth in the rankings: Peak AltaTrueshot (£694 £PLI) from a McCutchen dam and Co-op Aardema Black Jack (£687 £PLI) out of a Numero Uno.
Marco Winters, head of animal genetics for AHDB Dairy, says: “With a wide choice of high merit genomic young sires on offer, these sires now form around 55% of Holstein bull semen sales.
“People are gaining ever more confidence in using them, and with good reason: all top 20 genomic Holstein bulls exceed the top 20 proven bulls on £PLI, and a genomic bull £PLI with reliability of 65% has a correlation of around 0.8 to its eventual proven £PLI of maximum reliability.”
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