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Letter to the Editor

1801 Aldrich Ct., Northfield, MN 55057, April 17, 2007

I am writing this letter in response to 2 prior letters published in the Journal of Animal Science (84:1308, 2006; and 84:3179, 2006) regarding the scientific paper "Design and standards for genetic evaluation of seedstock populations" published in the Journal (81:2409–2418, 2003).

I believe a clarification to this paper needs to be published concerning some details about Newsham Hybrids (USA) Inc. (Colorado Springs, CO) and its population of sires evaluated in the Terminal Sire Line Genetic Evaluation Program. I would like to make the following points:

1. Newsham Hybrids participated in the Terminal Sire Line Evaluation Program and met the criteria as described in 6 bullet points noted in a letter dated May 10, 2004, from the lead author of the paper. However, further explanation of the Newsham population is needed.
   
2. Newsham Hybrids sent the required pedigree information to the Genetic Programs Committee (GPC) of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC; Des Moines, IA), and the pedigree was evaluated and accepted. As a result of participation and providing individual sire pedigree, the GPC shared with Newsham, and all other participants, data from the trial on individual sire performance. Genetic Program Committee members, some of whom are authors on the paper, can verify this directly;
   
3. The GPC was correct in allowing the Newsham population into the trial because the Newsham gene pool was not otherwise represented in North America, and it gave substantial credibility to the evaluation; and
   
4. The Newsham population was not a single genetic line, nor was it the crossbred line and its parent lines, as noted in paragraph 1, column 2 on page 2410 of the paper. To meet the genetic criteria established by the GPC, Newsham sampled from all of its nucleus lines, which included parent lines and the Newsham terminal sire (later known as the Newsham UL boar). From a breed designation, the Newsham population evaluated included Large White, Landrace, Pietrain, Duroc, 2 Hampshire-Duroc synthetic lines, and an F₁ terminal sire line. This represented 7 distinct lines, all incorporated and evaluated as the "Newsham" population.
   

To some, it may seem irrelevant to make this fourth point. However, I feel that the authors and GPC would be best to clarify this, so that some unique genetic analysis will not be done incorrectly using this data set. For example, because lines with and without the Halothane gene were included in the Newsham population, a direct comparison with other breed-defined lines may be incorrect.

By not clearly stating in the paper that the Newsham population was a composite sampling of multiple nucleus lines, the authors of this paper, the GPC, and the Journal of Animal Science have left out key facts. Such omission can lead to future assumptions that may be detrimental to geneticists or animal scientists who may use this paper as a foundation for their work. This is particularly relevant, as the pork industry continues to evaluate more "synthetic" lines, which may be defined in nontraditional terms such as by their growth rate or their selection index rather then by traditional breed specifications.

Clearly, in the real world there are a lot of issues that affect organizations and data. I feel that the editor-in-chief and the corresponding author need to make the clarification concerning the Newsham population used in the paper.

This article has been cited by other articles:

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