Beef on Dairy: The Use of a Simple Tool to Improve Both Cattle Production Systems

Crossbreeding is a management tool that has been commonly used in cattle. This management strategy has been historically used, especially in tropical countries, in order to seek for more robust animals. More recently, an expression has become famous in the dairy cattle systems: “Beef on dairy.” The use of beef bulls in dairy cows for terminal crossbreeding has increased exponentially over the last decade due to lower milk prices and higher meat prices for crossbred animals. Studies have demonstrated that there is more potential in selling a crossbred calf than a dairy cow. However, there is still a lot to be done in this kind of system that may be considered "new" and have a promising impact in the beef market.

The meat price will increase in the near future due to the growing population and, consequently, the demand for beef products. The optimal use of beef semen to increase reproductive performance in dairy herds, along with the use of the available technology such as sexed semen, seem to be alternatives to overcome this situation. The main goal of “Beef on dairy” is to maximize the profitability of both dairy and beef chains by using beef bulls on dairy cows. Therefore, the main goal of this Research Topic would be to search for better management and breeding tools in order to improve dairy-beef systems.

Subtopics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Production systems for dairy-beef
• The use of sexed semen and IVP in dairy-beef systems
• Economics of different dairy-beef systems
• Environmental credentials of dairy-beef vs. beef systems
• Genomic selection signatures in dairy-beef systems
• Development of new genomic evaluation systems for crossbreeding performance
• Genome wide association studies for dairy-beef systems of economically important traits