Abstract

Heritabilities and genetic correlations were estimated from the selected and control lines of a 25-year selection experiment for hogget greasy fleece weight (GFW). The heritability of GFW was higher in the selected than the control line and in female hoggets (0.48) compared with males (0.32). Inter- age genetic correlations were less than unity, and higher in fleece weight selected animals. Average genetic correlations between hogget and adult records were higher in ewe than ram hoggets. Together these parameters gave co-heritability estimates (pooled across lines) for greasy hogget with clean adult ewe fleece weights of nearly half the average magnitude in males (0.21) compared with female (0.36). These results have important repercussions to the design of effective selection strategies for improvement of lifetime wool production.

JN, Clarke, JL Dobbie, SM Hickey, KR Jones, and AL Wrigglesworth

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 55, , 268-271, 1995