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ASA's Young Sire Progeny Testing Program

With the first matings at the Sheek Ranch, Cabool, Missouri, in the spring of 1997, the American Simmental Association launched a program that would eventually change the direction and collective futures of all producers and users of Simmental Genetics.  Then simply known as the Carcass Merit Project, the top sires of the Simmental and Simbrah breeds were randomly mated to commercial females with the plan to collect difficult to get progeny sire group carcass information and sometimes tenderness data.

CMP is entering its 25th breeding season. In addition to information about carcass traits, this program contributes birth, weaning, and yearling weights, and calving ease scores as well as shear force and feed conversion data.

For the genomic component, the Association pays genotyping costs associated with the use of tissue-sampling units (TSU) provided through Allflex^TM.

Carcass Merit Sire Evaluation Program

You may ask yourself, who pays for all this? Bull owners commit thousands of dollars each year to get an unbiased evaluation for the next generation of genetically influential young candidate sires. This information is important for all SimGenetic users as it builds significant accuracy for economically important EPDs and assists in the early screening for bulls that possess unique levels of trait differential and thus provide maximum selection leverage.

The data collected has allowed the ASA to amass substantial information for benchmarking so that performance and value expectations can be conveyed to current and potential customers of our members. From providing confidence regarding levels of calving assistance, all the way to predicting end product value for those wishing to be profitable in the feeding business, ASA can reliably estimate the performance of their genetic products due in part to the information collected on SimGenetic sires tested in these “real world” commercial situations. The CMP steers are born, raised, fed, and harvested in nearly every cattle-feeding region of the nation.

If you’re interested in being a commercial cooperator herd, click here.

If you’re interested in nominating a sire for CMP semen, click here.

Sires are tested in “real world” commercial situations. Data is collected from 41 different herds in 18 states with steers fed and harvested in nearly every cattle feeding region in the U.S.

For more information, contact the American Simmental Association

Phone: 406-587-4531

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