British Charolais - The British Charolais Cattle Society

Report on the World Charolais Technical Conference held in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia.

3rd - 10th May, 2009

Charolais bulls in the paddock at Palgrove

The World Charolais Technical Conference is a bi-annual event hosted by Charolais Herd Books in rotation, with the 2009 event hosted by the Australian Charolais Society, to coincide with the tri-annual Beef Expo held in Rockhampton, Queensland.

Ben Harman and I were the two British Charolais delegates and ultimately met up with delegates from ten other Charolais herd books world-wide.

Prior to the Congress, we were met by the Charolais International President and visited three Charolais herds who had imported British Charolais genetics in recent years. The first stop was at Palgrove, the stud owned by David and Prue Bondfield in the Warwick region, approximately 2.5 hours west of Brisbane. The Palgrove herd is one of the leading cattle studs of all breeds selling in the region of 1,000 breeding bulls a year, together with around 200 females annually for breeding. Two sales a year are held on the farm, one selling bulls and the other a female sale. Several bulls are sold directly off the property, with bulk orders received for bulls to go into the extensive grazing areas of Northern Queensland where a cow to 50 acres is the norm.

Left to right: David and Prue Bondfield, Ben Harman, Neil Gilkes (Canadian Charolais General Manager) Garner Deobald, and the Charolais International President Bill Dunlop

To exploit the three way cross, half-bred bulls such as Charbray, Charolais x Shorthorn and Charolais x Angus are sold to breed with pure Brahman and Droughtmaster females.

The Bondfields are at the top of their game and combine top genetics with top management and are also very good at promoting their cattle - skills which have been honed over forty years of breeding Charolais in Australia. They have also toured the world to select Charolais genetics suitable for their Australian market. Whilst on their travels they have undoubtedly pushed up promotional tips to market their private and bi-annual auction sales.

Bulls such as Seawell Offshore and Burradon Talisman had been used to great effect, with an Offshore daughter being sold a few years ago for $30,000Aus.

The Palgrove stud has been awarded the National Seed Stock Producer of the Year Award. This honour is bestowed every two years by the Beef Improvement Association and recognises outstanding herd quality, superior after-sales service, a demonstrated commitment to innovation and education in the beef industry and the development of clear breeding objectives.

A hugh bottle tree marked the entrance to the Gunadoo Property

Sorghum which has been flood irrigated at the Noller’s Campbell’s property

We awoke at approximately 4 a.m. to the sound of the show cattle being loaded for the long journey to Rockhampton in preparation for the Beef Expo Charolais show section.

After breakfast, we had a tour of the bull paddocks where the sale bulls had been selected for the Autumn on-farm sale. Initially, the bulls were selected into groups and were grazing oats. On the run-up to the sale some concentrate will be introduced to give a good cover.

We kept hearing the term 'softness' being mentioned which, in our terminology, means 'natural fleshing'. The Charolais have to be easy fleshing as their progeny are largely finished off grass, with a possible 70 or 100-day finishing period in feed lots in preparation to meet the requirements for either the domestic market, or for export, including the lucrative Japanese export market where a higher fat cover is a major pre-requisite.

From Palgrove, we travelled across the Darling Downs en route to the next visit to the Gunadoo herd owned by Gary, Debbie and Ben Noller.

Ian and Del Price on their Moongool property

Charolais bulls at Moongool

The Darling Downs is a very flat, fertile area of black soil. The limiting factor (as in many areas of Australia) is water. Consequently large dams are constructed to hold the rainwater, and the land is then flood irrigated. Crops such as sorghum, wheat, cotton, maize and soya beans are grown in vast areas.

Gunadoo was situated in a low rainfall undulating area where farming was a constant battle against drought. If the rains come, bumper wheat and cereal crops can be grown but too often the crops fail. Hence the Noller family had purchased a property called Campbells on the Darling Downs and were in the process of selling their Gunadoo property by auction some four weeks after our visit and then moving their complete farming operation of arable and Charolais cattle to the new property.

We visited Campbells and saw at first hand the flood irrigation methods on the rich organic soil where sorghum and soya beans were in the process of being harvested.

The following day we moved off for a long drive to visit the Price family at Moongool. Some British Charolais breeders will have met up with Ian and Del Price during their visits to the UK and during the 2008 World Charolais Congress.

Charolais calves by Ballindalloch UFO and Allanfauld Superscot on display at Beef expo

Bull dozers are still used for cleaning re-growth in the paddocks

It was on a visit to the Balmoral Show in 2005 that the Price's met up with Gilbert Crawford and purchased semen from Ballindalloch Ufo and Allanfauld Superscot. Progeny from these two bulls were being prepared for their bull sale. Calves by each of the two bulls were on display on the Moongool stand at the Beef Expo event.

Ian and Del Price, together with their son Ivan and his family, farm 70,000 acres on four properties. The homestead we visited was well off the beaten track east of the town of Roma. The property was originally cleared by a chain strung between two bulldozers and it was apparent, despite the low rainfall, that the ground was fertile, with a highly productive buffalo grass grown for conservation and grazing.

The Moongool Charolais cattle, particularly the females, had a very good reputation and each year their annual on-farm sale was well supported. This quality of females was apparent during the Beef Expo when a Moongool heifer was sold for $16,000 Aus. in an innovative open judging competition/auction sale. Whereby 16 heifers were paraded and judged by all comers. The best eight went forward culminating in the final four being announced. The ultimate winner was not announced at this stage but after the auction sale when the purchaser of the judged winner received $2,000 Aus. prize money. A cunning method to encourage bidding what potential purchasers thought was the best animal.

On the 3rd May we flew from Brisbane to Rockhampton and joined the other Charolais delegates from around the world to participate in the Technical programme which was a mixture of technical papers, farm visits, and Charolais judging at the Beef Expo.

The 4th May was a morning visit to Geoff and Alison Maynard at Mount Eugene, Jamlin, Queensland. Alison is an ex-pat Glaswegian who, despite living in a very rural Aussie environment, still had a broad Scottish accent. Mount Eugene is a 15,000 acre property and carries 700 performance recorded cows along with 1,400 commercial cows.

Bill Dunlop introduced Geoff Maynard to the delegation

Senepol X Charolais bulls on the Mount Eugene property

The Maynards were innovative cattle breeders having trialled the first Belmont-sired cattle in Australia, and were the first to import Senepols into Australia from the U S A via 500 embryos. Belmont Reds are Santa Gertrudis x Shorthorn, and Senepols are a red poll mated to a local bovine from Senegal in Africa. The Senepols and Belmont Reds are bovines which are suited for drought conditions which are infected with ticks.

The Charolais x Senepol cattle are then used in other cross-breeding programmes with the more traditional beef breeds in the tropical areas such as Brahman, Drought mates and Santa Gertrudis. The performance recording of the calves was comprehensive which resulted in a lucrative trade for the cattle and exports of the Mount Eugene genetics to several tropical countries.

The next visit was to Ayr Charolais owned by George, Ruth and David Cass. The Cass family are still associate BCCS members and were full BCCS members breeding Charolais cattle at Waterview Farm, Cockermouth, Cumbria from 1969 under the Gaytime prefix. They emigrated to Australia in 1972 and started breeding Full French Charolais under the Ayr prefix. The Cass family farmed in New South Wales for thirty years before moving north to farm the 7,300 acres at Mungabunda, Marra, Qld. A property as different to Cockermouth as chalk is to cheese. The property was reclaimed Briglow country which is some of the best grazing land in Australia. There were 1,337 head of cattle on the farm, stocking 9 acres to one cow. As usual the shortage of rainfall was a problem, and a dam was constructed to hold 300 mega litres of water. Ticks were also a problem and the cattle were plunge dipped every three weeks. The Cass family had a good following for their Charolais cattle and also hold an annual on farm sale which is well supported by commercial bull buyers.

5th May. Visit to Gracemere sale complex followed by Technical Presentations

The morning visit to the Gracemere auction sale complex took in the auction sale of pens of cattle which had been judged the previous day. There were various breeds and crosses from European and British breeds to the tropical breeds and sections for cattle reared on different finishing systems and for different markets. Some pens were eligible for export to the European Union.

The pens of cattle were brought from the pens to the sale ring and back on horseback with the auctioneers and their team of spotters making the visit entertaining as well as a business event.

The afternoon technical sessions were held in the Leichhardt Hotel and were chaired by an eminent veterinarian, Dr Douglas Bryden.

The first speaker was Terry Nolan, a director of Nolan Meats Ltd and Chairman of several meat industry boards, who gave an insight into the Australian beef industry. There are 28 million beef cows in Australia which is predicted to rise to 30 million by 2015. Australia consumes 750k tonnes of beef and, consequently, Australia is very much dependent on exports with 41% exported to Japan, 21% to the USA, and 6% to the EU.

Allen Bloxam from 'Meat Standards Australia', a company similar to the MLC (now AHDB), gave a presentation on beef consumption and improving the quality of beef. There was a decline in beef consumption because of inconsistency in the product. There was no 'silver bullet' for a quick solution, and so an extensive consumer analysis was put in place with the largest product testing programme in the world.

Ultimately, the beef was categorised depending on breed, feeding regime, and past slaughter techniques, and then given a star rating on the labelling. A new, smart stimulation process had been introduced which picks up a carcase, weighs it, and fires a short electrical charge with a different dose per carcase to tenderise the meat.

The third speaker of the session was Jason Strong, the head of Market Development for Pfizer Animal Genetics. Currently Pfizer are working with genetic markers for marbling, tenderness and feed conversion efficiency in a 56 gene marker panel. Trial work had been carried out with tenderness predictions in Brahman cattle. Ultimately, as more research is carried out, various traits will be incorporated into a BLUP model to increase the accuracy of the traits at an earlier age.

It seems that although an animal may carry a gene for a specific trait, it may not manifest itself in its progeny. This type of research into the cattle genome is still in the embryonic stage and undoubtedly will progress with time as more research is carried out.

The evening dinner was held at a property called Paradise Lagoon owned by Graham Acton. Along with the dinner, the open stock judging and heifer spectacular (as mentioned previously) took place. Graham Acton owned something like one million acres in Queensland. He reportedly had to move 78,000 cattle south from Northern Queensland because of drought. This was a mammoth task involving something in the order of 400 road trains, comprising of one unit pulling three double-decker trailers.

Left to right: George Cass, Ben Harman, David Benson, Ruth Cass and David Cass

Charolais cattle grazing MUNGABUNDA paddock

6th May. In the morning there was the opportunity to visit the Beef 2009 showground and pay a visit to the Breedplan stand and make contact with the ABRI staff who support the BCCS registration/genetic evaluation programme.

In the afternoon, there were more technical presentations starting with Christian Duff, a project co-ordinator working out of ABRI, who delivers technical support to breed societies. Each year Christian delivers a new programme to breed societies on the latest Breedplan updates. His 2009 programme was entitled 'Know Your Genes'. He gave an excellent presentation and has been offered an invitation to visit the U.K. and give presentations on behalf of Breedplan to Breedplan UK members at Open meetings.

Christian was followed by Dr Hans Grasser who had a major input in the development of Breedplan technology. His paper concerned incorporating gene markers into the genetic evaluation packages to give

Accurate parentage assignment
Avoid genetic disorders - e.g. curly calf syndrome
Include gene markers in genetic evaluation

There is a requirement to identify gene markers for specific traits. The gene markers will explain the percentage genetic variation of a trait and will increase the accuracy of ebv's, and will have the potential to increase genetic selection. The gene markers must have a multi-trait objective to reduce production costs.

However, the message came over loud and clear that the marketing of some gene markers is very much in the early stages and not too accurate at the present time but, as more research is carried out, improvements will be made. A further point for consideration is that the gene frequencies vary between breeds and also between populations within a breed. For instance, because Charolais in North America have probably been graded up from Angus to introduce the polled gene, then their genetic make-up is slightly different to Charolais which have been based on Full French lines.

To have accurate estimates, somewhere in the order of 5,000 animals of a specific breed will need to be evaluated. Basically, it is an on-going process and will improve with time.

Cattle coming under the auctioneer hammer at the Gracemere complex

Pens of cattle eligible for the EU market were kept in separate pens

Charolais judging underway at the Beef Expo Event

7th May was an all day visit to the Charolais judging at the Beef Expo event. There were close to 300 Charolais cattle entered for the show. Judging commenced at

9 a.m. sharp under the capable hands of the Charolais International President, Bill Dunlop.

The grand champion bull was a Novotel son Sedalia Chancellor exhibited by D E Giddings, with D & P Bondfield showing Palgrove Festoon into the champion female position.

A Seawell Offshore daughter, exhibited by Crathes Charolais, took the junior female championship title.

8th and 9th May These were two days of visits to the showground, broken up with discussions and presentations by the various Charolais herd books based around inter-acting with commercial bull buyers. There was also the Charolais Internation Annual General Meeting where David Lewis (Penrhiw) was nominated as a vice-president in preparation for British Charolais hosting the 2012 Congress.

The final day was a leisurely day with a visit, by boat, onto Great Keppel Island.

During the visit, the hospitality shown by our Australian hosts was excellent. The content of the programme, together with the speakers, was of the highest order. We could only marvel at the size of the Australian beef cow herd, and the technical support the Australian beef industry has.

The visit to the ABRI stand reinforced our decision to have our registration/genetic evaluation programmes customised for the UK and supported by ABRI.

Requests have been made for some of the papers to be forwarded, and will be published to members in future editions of Charolais News.