The Future of Irish Dairy Breeding with Donagh Berry

The Future of Irish Dairy Breeding with Donagh Berry

From The Dairy Edge by Teagasc

March 30, 2026 · 24 min

About this episode

Prof. Donagh Berry discusses the future of Irish Dairy Breeding Programmes and the impact of sexed semen on genetic gain.

Prof. Donagh Berry, Quantitative Geneticist at Teagasc Moorepark, joins Stuart Childs on this week’s Dairy Edge to discuss the future of Irish Dairy Breeding Programmes. Donagh first explains that breeding is all about numbers. With the uptake in use of sexed semen, the pool of dairy bull calves being born has shrunk and while this was part of the objective of using it in the first place, there is a side effect which has the potential to slow genetic gain in Irish dairy. He outlines the type of numbers of calves that need to be born each year in order to maintain the genetic growth that Irish farmers have enjoyed since the late 2000s when genomics arrived. In order to continue this, it will be important to have a structured breeding programme that will see Irish farmers work with the AI companies putting some of their best cows in calf to nominated bulls with a view to delivering the bulls of the future. Failure to do so will see the progress made in the industry in the last three decades since the introduction of the EBI slow significantly. However, Donagh is attempting to avoid this occurrence by bringing industry together during 2026 to discuss the situation, identify the…

People in this episode

Host: Stuart Childs

Guest: Prof. Donagh Berry

Topics covered

  • Irish Dairy Breeding
  • Genetics
  • Sexed Semen
  • Genomic Selection
  • Breeding Programmes

Keywords

  • Irish dairy
  • breeding
  • genetics
  • sexed semen
  • genomic selection
  • EBI
  • Teagasc

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Teagasc

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