How now, beef cow? - virtues of various beef cattle breeds - part 1

Agricultural Research, Nov, 1991 by Sandy Miller Hays

"I'm convinced there's a lot of potential for interaction. That's what it's all about--matching these animal resources with what we have to work with in the environment."

Environmental issues also occupy the front burner at the ARS Subtropical Agricultural Research Station headed at Brooksville, Florida, by Andrew C. Hammond.

"In this country, there are 50 or more breeds of beef cattle," notes Hammond. "Of the ones with some adaptation to a subtropical environment like we have in Florida, the vast majority are either Brahman or some sort of Brahman composite.

"Brahmans serve us well; they're the backbone of the cattle industry here in Florida. But with the Brahmans come problems of reproductive efficiency, carcass quality, and to some extent, performance in the feedlot." Hammond hopes to find the admirable tropical toughness of the Brahman in some other breed, perhaps a Bos taurus, that doesn't share the Brahman's problems.

"There are tropically adapted Bos taurus cattle in South and Central America and Africa," he notes. "One is the Romosinuano from Colombia. This is a criollo breed, brought over by the Spaniards; they've had some 300 to 400 years to adapt to the tropics."

Another promising Bos taurus is the Senepol breed, developed on the island of St. Croix at the turn of the century from a blend of the African N'Dama breed and the English Red Poll.

In cooperation with the University of Florida, the Brooksville lab acquired Senepol semen in 1977 and Senepol females in 1982 to begin building a herd that in 1990 finally numbered 100 breeding-age females. [See Agricultural Research, September 1990, pp. 14-16.]

"Two years ago, we began crossing Hereford sires with Senepol dams, and Senepol sires with Hereford dams," Hammond says.

"When you crossbreed, you get performance that's above the average of the parents. We are collecting a second year's data now on these crosses, and we want to get at least 3.

"But this looks promising so far. I believe the Senepol will probably find their way into the cattle industry in the same way that the Brahman did--some as purebreds, but mostly for what they contribute to crossbreeding programs. But we need to know exactly what they will contribute."

Although the Senepol is a Bos taurus rather than a Bos indicus, the breed has much in common with the Brahman, Hammond notes.

"The purebred Senepol cow's reproductive performance at Brooksville is very much like the Brahman's," he says. "But maybe that's how these animals survive hot climates--by not investing their body stores in having a calf every year when nutrition is limited."

On the plus side, Senepol are more docile than Brahmans, Hammond says. Still to come: evaluations of the Senepol carcass for qualities such as tenderness.

With the Senepol research well on its way, the Brooksville team is now turning a greater share of its attention to the Romosinuano breed from Colombia.

As part of a joint project with the University of Missouri at Columbia, the University of Florida, and Jim Griffin of Reproductive Technology International in Plant City, Florida, ARS researchers in 1990 obtained Romosinuano embryos imported from Costa Rica. Half of those embryos were implanted in Brahman cows, half in Angus, and the first calf crop is now on the ground at Brooksville and available for study.