Resumo: Milk production is usually challenging under tropical environments. Heat stress and/or recurrent parasite infestations frequently cause cattle?s reduced fitness and productivity. As a way to overcome this challenge, the Gir indicine cattle breed has increasingly been used in crossbred schemes to constitute milk production herds in Brazil and other countries in tropical regions. The Brazilian Dairy Gir Breeding Program was established in 1985, based on a partnership between the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the Brazilian Association of Dairy Gir Breeders. It was the first breeding program outlined with a progeny test for the improvement of an indicine breed for milk production in the world. Several technical innovations were employed along the time. Now, producers can access genomic predictions for thousands of Gir males and females. Those predictions are used mainly by Brazilian breeders, but also increasingly in other tropical countries from South America, Central America and Asia.

Ano de publicação: 2022

Tipo de publicação: Artigo em anais e proceedings

Unidade: Embrapa Gado de Leite