Dairy Cattle Reproduction Council (DCRC) brought producers, academia and industry experts together for discussions, presentations and panels Nov. 12-14 at the 2024 annual meeting in Arlington, Texas. 

Sitting in his home office sipping a cup of coffee, Paul Larmer is seemingly common. Unbeknownst to the average person, his influence on the dairy cattle genetics sector of the industry is undeniable. It is for both his remarkable leadership and self-effacing attitude that Larmer is named this year’s World Dairy Expo International Person of the Year.

When working to maximize fertility in cattle, cows are often the focus. However, bull fertility is a crucial consideration for any beef operation.

Historically, the relative value of traits to the commercial cow-calf sector has been stated as the “10-to-2-to-1 rule of thumb,” where fertility traits are 10 times more important than carcass traits and five times more important than growth traits.

In the past 20 years, genetic potential of the cow herd and production costs have steadily increased; however, production outputs (pregnancy rates and weaning weights) have been stagnant or declined.

“Genetic improvement” is a term with far-reaching implications, uniquely and individually defined by those in the beef industry.