Effects of a breeding scheme combined by genomic pre‐selection and progeny testing on annual genetic gain in a dairy cattle population

The effectiveness of the incorporation of genomic pre‐selection into dairy cattle progeny testing ( GS‐PT ) was compared with that of progeny testing ( PT ) where the fraction of dam to breed bull ( DB ) selected was 0.01. When the fraction of sires to breed bulls ( SB ) selected without being progeny tested to produce young bulls ( YB ) in the next generation was 0.2, the annual genetic gain from GS‐PT was 13% to 43% greater when h 2  = 0.3 and 16% to 53% greater when h 2  = 0.1 compared with that from PT . Given h 2  = 0.3, a selection accuracy of 0.8 for both YB and DB , and selected fractions of 0.117 for YB and 0.04 for DB , GS‐PT produced 40% to 43% greater annual genetic gain than PT . Given h 2  = 0.1, a selection accuracy of 0.6 for both YB and DB , and selected fractions of 0.117 for YB and 0.04 for DB , annual genetic gain from GS‐PT was 48% to 53% greater than that from PT . When h 2  = 0.3, progeny testing capacity had little effect on annual genetic gain from GS‐PT . However, when h 2  = 0.1, annual genetic gain from GS‐PT increased with increasing progeny testing capacity.