Validation of National Genomic Evaluations

Several countries enrolled in Interbull services have developed national genomic models for computation of genomic breeding values. For international trade, these models should be validated. A new validation method was developed and tested on 13 different populations for protein yield. This new method is described in this paper. Because of selective genotyping of young bulls, the slopes of the linear regressions and their expected values differed from one. Comparing these slopes to their expected values, 11 of the 13 populations passed the genomic validation test successfully. Using information on direct genomic values in addition to parent averages doubled the accuracy of predicting future breeding values.