WEBVTT 00:00:10.220 --> 00:00:14.039 Creeping across the pasture land. Got dirt on 00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:18.719 the boots and a working hand. From the milk house 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:24.000 home to the auction call. These are the folks 00:00:24.000 --> 00:01:00.219 standing strong and tall. Yeah, this is... Welcome 00:01:00.219 --> 00:01:03.500 back to the Bullvine Podcast. Usually when we 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:05.900 sit down to record one of these deep dives, we 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:07.819 have a pretty good idea of the archetype we're 00:01:07.819 --> 00:01:10.219 dealing with. Right, yeah. We usually know the 00:01:10.219 --> 00:01:11.579 kind of person we're going to be talking about. 00:01:11.659 --> 00:01:13.620 Exactly. We're talking about the master breeder, 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:16.239 you know, the guy with the keen eye standing 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:19.430 right in the center of the ring. or maybe we're 00:01:19.430 --> 00:01:21.950 talking about the innovator the person who built 00:01:21.950 --> 00:01:24.810 a robotic milker in their shop or designed a 00:01:24.810 --> 00:01:27.769 totally new forage system the tangible stuff 00:01:27.769 --> 00:01:31.909 the tangible stuff exactly but today today is 00:01:31.909 --> 00:01:35.090 different today we are sharing a story that quite 00:01:35.090 --> 00:01:39.250 honestly uh stopped us in our tracks It is different. 00:01:39.329 --> 00:01:41.290 And I'll admit, when we first looked at the source 00:01:41.290 --> 00:01:43.930 material for this deep dive, this stack of papers 00:01:43.930 --> 00:01:46.530 titled Architects of the Index, I thought, OK, 00:01:46.670 --> 00:01:48.769 are we really going to spend our time talking 00:01:48.769 --> 00:01:50.849 about statistics? It sounds dry when you say 00:01:50.849 --> 00:01:53.769 it like that. It does. I mean, I love data, but 00:01:53.769 --> 00:01:56.150 stats can be tough. But then I started reading. 00:01:56.250 --> 00:01:58.450 And this isn't a story about math. This is the 00:01:58.450 --> 00:02:00.450 story that reminds you exactly why you got into 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:03.290 dairy in the first place. From a completely, 00:02:03.409 --> 00:02:05.709 and I mean completely, unexpected angle. It really 00:02:05.709 --> 00:02:07.730 is. It's the story of the invisible architects. 00:02:08.069 --> 00:02:10.810 Yeah. The people whose work dictates almost every 00:02:10.810 --> 00:02:14.050 single decision made on a modern dairy farm. 00:02:14.389 --> 00:02:16.669 And the wild part is it happens often without 00:02:16.669 --> 00:02:18.490 you even knowing their names. Yeah, the quiet 00:02:18.490 --> 00:02:21.449 guys in the background. Right. So today we are 00:02:21.449 --> 00:02:24.009 doing a deep dive into the legacy of two men, 00:02:24.310 --> 00:02:27.909 George Wiggins and Paul Van Ryn. And before anyone 00:02:27.909 --> 00:02:29.990 tuning in thinks this is going to be some dry 00:02:29.990 --> 00:02:32.590 history lesson or a lecture on algorithms, let 00:02:32.590 --> 00:02:35.050 me drop a number on you, a really hard number. 00:02:35.169 --> 00:02:37.650 Let's hear it. These two men are largely responsible 00:02:37.650 --> 00:02:40.409 for pushing net merit progress, and that's the 00:02:40.409 --> 00:02:43.270 literal profit potential of your herd, from about 00:02:43.270 --> 00:02:47.590 $40 per cow per year to $85 per cow per year. 00:02:47.770 --> 00:02:51.240 Okay, let's unpack that right away. 45 extra 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:52.900 dollars doesn't sound like a life -changing amount 00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:54.699 when you just say it quickly like that. No, it 00:02:54.699 --> 00:02:56.180 doesn't. It sounds like, I don't know, a rounding 00:02:56.180 --> 00:02:58.080 error on a feed bill. Right. On the surface, 00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:00.439 it's just a small number. But let's do the real 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:02.520 talk here. Let's do the barn math for you sitting 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:04.960 on the tractor right now listening to this. Break 00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:07.740 it down. If you take that genetic game, that 00:03:07.740 --> 00:03:10.919 exact acceleration that these two men engineered, 00:03:11.060 --> 00:03:15.379 and you apply it to a standard 300 cow herd over 00:03:15.379 --> 00:03:20.520 a decade, You are looking at roughly $135 ,000 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:23.680 in long -term genetic value added to that operation. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.879 Wow. Yeah. That is money that simply wouldn't 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:30.430 exist without the systems they built. It's not 00:03:30.430 --> 00:03:34.129 just theoretical value. It's real equity in your 00:03:34.129 --> 00:03:37.090 herd. That is massive. I mean, think about what 00:03:37.090 --> 00:03:38.870 you can do with that. That's a parlor renovation. 00:03:39.349 --> 00:03:41.530 That's a new piece of heavy equipment. That's 00:03:41.530 --> 00:03:44.009 literally college tuition for your kids. Exactly. 00:03:44.009 --> 00:03:46.610 That is the margin between getting by and getting 00:03:46.610 --> 00:03:48.990 ahead in this industry. And the crazy thing, 00:03:49.069 --> 00:03:51.370 the really crazy thing, is that most producers 00:03:51.370 --> 00:03:53.169 have never heard of them. Well, let's change 00:03:53.169 --> 00:03:55.069 that today. I want to take you to a specific 00:03:55.069 --> 00:03:58.770 moment to set the stage for this deep dive. Picture 00:03:58.770 --> 00:04:02.639 this. It's September 29th, 2025. Not that long 00:04:02.639 --> 00:04:06.300 ago. Right. We are in Madison, Wisconsin at the 00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:08.860 National Dairy Shrine Banquet. It's one of those 00:04:08.860 --> 00:04:11.439 nights where everyone looks polished. You know, 00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:12.979 the air conditioning is humming in the banquet 00:04:12.979 --> 00:04:16.300 hall and the room is... absolutely full of the 00:04:16.300 --> 00:04:18.800 heavy hitters of the industry. The kind of room 00:04:18.800 --> 00:04:20.860 where if you're a genetics nerd, you're basically 00:04:20.860 --> 00:04:23.639 asking for autographs. Totally. You've got the 00:04:23.639 --> 00:04:26.339 heads of the major AI companies, the university 00:04:26.339 --> 00:04:28.699 professors, the legends of the breed, all sitting 00:04:28.699 --> 00:04:31.160 at those roundtables. Right. And on this particular 00:04:31.160 --> 00:04:34.180 night, George Wiggins and Paul Van Raden are 00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:37.079 walking up to receive the Pioneer Award. Inside 00:04:37.079 --> 00:04:40.060 that room... They are massive celebrities. They 00:04:40.060 --> 00:04:42.779 are revered. Oh, absolutely. The geneticists 00:04:42.779 --> 00:04:44.680 in that audience have been citing their research 00:04:44.680 --> 00:04:47.560 papers for literally decades. They know that 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:50.160 these two men are the giants upon whose shoulders 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:53.600 the entire modern dairy industry stands. But 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.259 here is the contrast. And this is what really 00:04:56.259 --> 00:04:59.759 struck me. Step outside that banquet hall. Drive 00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:02.759 maybe 20 minutes out of Madison to an actual 00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:06.240 working dairy farm. Maybe it's a 60 -cow tie 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:09.540 stall. Or maybe it's a 2 ,000 -cow rotary. Any 00:05:09.540 --> 00:05:12.160 farm at all. Right. And you go up and ask the 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:14.519 guy scraping the alleys, hey, what do you think 00:05:14.519 --> 00:05:16.660 about Wiggins and Van Raden? And what happens? 00:05:16.939 --> 00:05:19.220 You'll probably get a blank stare. Almost total 00:05:19.220 --> 00:05:21.939 anonymity. That is the paradox we are sitting 00:05:21.939 --> 00:05:25.399 with today. How is it that these men appear on 00:05:25.399 --> 00:05:27.959 practically every single sire list you use? I 00:05:27.959 --> 00:05:29.980 mean, their work is literally the filter you 00:05:29.980 --> 00:05:32.600 use to buy semen. Yeah. Yet the average farmer 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:34.699 has never heard their names. It's because they 00:05:34.699 --> 00:05:36.759 were the back end. They were the operating system. 00:05:36.959 --> 00:05:38.680 That's a perfect way to put it. You don't think 00:05:38.680 --> 00:05:40.839 about the code writer who built the GPS software 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:42.639 in your tractor, right? You just look back and 00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:44.540 know the roser straight. You trust the scream. 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:47.959 Wiggins and Van Raden were the code writers for 00:05:47.959 --> 00:05:50.240 the modern cow. The code writers. I love that. 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:52.480 But here's the thing. And this is why you really 00:05:52.480 --> 00:05:54.920 need to stick with us on this deep dive. If you 00:05:54.920 --> 00:05:57.300 don't understand the system they built, you are 00:05:57.300 --> 00:05:59.819 definitely leaving money on the table. You have 00:05:59.819 --> 00:06:02.720 to know how the tool works to get the most out 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:07.300 of it. So how did two quiet scientists in a lab 00:06:07.300 --> 00:06:11.000 in Beltsville, Maryland, end up influencing your 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.519 milk check more than almost anyone else in history? 00:06:13.819 --> 00:06:17.240 To understand that, we have to go back, way back. 00:06:17.459 --> 00:06:19.199 And surprisingly, the story doesn't start in 00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:21.500 a sterile lab with white coats. No, it doesn't. 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:25.100 It starts, as the best dairy stories do, on the 00:06:25.100 --> 00:06:27.480 farm. Both of them were farm kids. And I think 00:06:27.480 --> 00:06:29.300 that's a really crucial detail to hold on to. 00:06:29.420 --> 00:06:31.920 They weren't academics looking for a random subject 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:34.660 to study. They were dairy kids looking for a 00:06:34.660 --> 00:06:36.740 solution to problems they had actually lived 00:06:36.740 --> 00:06:38.579 through. Let's start with George Wiggins. He 00:06:38.579 --> 00:06:41.220 grew up near Aurora, New York, right on Cayuga 00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:43.420 Lake. Beautiful, beautiful country up there. 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:45.420 Oh, yeah. Gorgeous dairy country. And his family 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:47.680 had a dynamic that I think really shapes his 00:06:47.680 --> 00:06:50.300 entire trajectory. They ran a dairy, yes, but 00:06:50.300 --> 00:06:52.480 they also had a hybrid seed business. So they 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:55.550 were already in the genetics game in a way. Exactly. 00:06:55.670 --> 00:06:58.110 And his grandfather wasn't just a farmer. He 00:06:58.110 --> 00:07:00.490 was a plant breeding professor at Cornell. See, 00:07:00.550 --> 00:07:03.829 that's huge. So he had the dirt under his fingernails 00:07:03.829 --> 00:07:06.990 from the daily chores, but he also had that high 00:07:06.990 --> 00:07:09.670 level academic rigor happening right at the dinner 00:07:09.670 --> 00:07:12.389 table. That's an incredibly powerful combination 00:07:12.389 --> 00:07:15.089 for a kid to grow up around. It really is. And 00:07:15.089 --> 00:07:17.649 here's the thing about George. He did the milking. 00:07:17.730 --> 00:07:19.990 He did the field work. He put in the sweat equity. 00:07:20.589 --> 00:07:23.589 But he didn't love the manual labor. Who does, 00:07:23.709 --> 00:07:26.120 really? Right. He wasn't the kid dreaming of 00:07:26.120 --> 00:07:29.139 being a herdsman for the rest of his life. He 00:07:29.139 --> 00:07:32.100 loved the quantitative side. He loved the numbers. 00:07:32.339 --> 00:07:34.399 I can completely relate to that. I mean, I love 00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:36.439 cows. I love the lifestyle. But there's always 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:38.519 a moment, usually when you're throwing heavy 00:07:38.519 --> 00:07:41.139 hay bales in 90 degree heat in a dusty mow, where 00:07:41.139 --> 00:07:43.620 you just stop and think, there has to be a smarter 00:07:43.620 --> 00:07:46.259 way to do this. For George, that smarter way 00:07:46.259 --> 00:07:49.620 was calculus. When he enrolled at Cornell, which 00:07:49.620 --> 00:07:51.920 was... Pretty much destiny, given his family's 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:54.620 deep ties there. His calculus scores were so 00:07:54.620 --> 00:07:57.199 high, they caught the eye of a specific advisor. 00:07:57.519 --> 00:08:00.160 Dr. L. Dale Van Vleck. And for anyone who doesn't 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:02.220 know the academic family tree of dairy genetics, 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:05.379 that is a heavy hitter name. Van Vleck studied 00:08:05.379 --> 00:08:07.459 under Charles Henderson, who is basically considered 00:08:07.459 --> 00:08:10.500 the father of modern animal breeding. connecting 00:08:10.500 --> 00:08:12.860 with Van Fleck. It's like a high school basketball 00:08:12.860 --> 00:08:15.540 player getting scouted by Phil Jackson. Right. 00:08:15.639 --> 00:08:18.639 It was a fast track to the big leagues of quantitative 00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:22.660 genetics. And Wiggins had this realization early 00:08:22.660 --> 00:08:25.180 on that I think is just so profound. He realized 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:27.560 that farming takes seasons. You plant a seed 00:08:27.560 --> 00:08:29.860 in the spring. You wait months until harvest 00:08:29.860 --> 00:08:32.080 to see if it worked. And with cows, it's even 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:34.679 longer. You breed a heifer, you wait nine months 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:36.940 for the calf, then two years for her to calve 00:08:36.940 --> 00:08:39.480 in, then almost another year to see her complete 00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:41.679 a lactation. You're waiting years to see if your 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:44.220 decision was a good one. Exactly. The feedback 00:08:44.220 --> 00:08:48.019 loop is agonizingly slow. But computer programs, 00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:50.899 they give you immediate feedback. You write the 00:08:50.899 --> 00:08:53.259 code, you run it, and you see success or failure 00:08:53.259 --> 00:08:56.019 right there on the screen in seconds. He wanted 00:08:56.019 --> 00:08:58.600 to hack the timeline. He saw that data could 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:01.669 move infinitely faster than biology. And if you 00:09:01.669 --> 00:09:03.830 think about it, that core desire to speed up 00:09:03.830 --> 00:09:06.389 the feedback loop is what eventually led to the 00:09:06.389 --> 00:09:09.049 genomic revolution. He was chasing that speed 00:09:09.049 --> 00:09:11.429 from day one. Now let's slip over to Paul Van 00:09:11.429 --> 00:09:13.690 Raden because his story has a slightly different 00:09:13.690 --> 00:09:16.409 flavor, but the same core drive. He grew up near 00:09:16.409 --> 00:09:19.820 Freeport, Illinois. 30 Cow Holstein Farm. 30 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:23.580 cows! Man, that is a classic honest -to -goodness 00:09:23.580 --> 00:09:26.100 family operation right there. On a farm that 00:09:26.100 --> 00:09:29.059 size, you know every single cow's name, you know 00:09:29.059 --> 00:09:31.080 her quirks, you know which stall she likes to 00:09:31.080 --> 00:09:33.139 stand in, you know who kicks. And I know you'll 00:09:33.139 --> 00:09:36.340 love this detail. His very first 4 -H calf was 00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:38.799 named Spotty. Of course it was. We all had a 00:09:38.799 --> 00:09:41.200 Spotty or a Princess or a Daisy. That's the relatable 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:43.919 part. He started exactly where we all started, 00:09:44.059 --> 00:09:46.500 leading a cap around a sawdust ring. But Paul 00:09:46.500 --> 00:09:48.639 had this hustle as a teenager that I think tells 00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:50.899 you everything about where he was headed. While 00:09:50.899 --> 00:09:53.500 he was in high school, he worked as a DHI supervisor. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:58.700 Oh man, the tester. Yes, the milk tester. He 00:09:58.700 --> 00:10:02.340 was earning $2 .20 an hour, driving to neighbor 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:04.779 farms, collecting milk weights, taking those 00:10:04.779 --> 00:10:06.980 little samples. I want you to really picture 00:10:06.980 --> 00:10:10.740 that. Being a DHI tester is not a glamorous job. 00:10:11.070 --> 00:10:12.950 Not at all. You're there at the most awkward 00:10:12.950 --> 00:10:15.250 hours, three in the morning, four in the afternoon. 00:10:15.909 --> 00:10:18.309 You're getting stepped on. You're dealing with 00:10:18.309 --> 00:10:21.210 manure splashing on your clipboard. You're dealing 00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:23.610 with grumpy farmers who really don't want to 00:10:23.610 --> 00:10:25.529 slow down their milking routine to let you take 00:10:25.529 --> 00:10:28.409 a sample. It's a grind. But think about what 00:10:28.409 --> 00:10:30.870 he was actually doing on a fundamental level. 00:10:31.070 --> 00:10:33.470 What do you mean? What was he doing? He was physically 00:10:33.470 --> 00:10:36.230 collecting the raw data, the milk pounds, the 00:10:36.230 --> 00:10:39.399 fat tests, the breeding dates. He was handling 00:10:39.399 --> 00:10:41.960 the exact data points that he would later spend 00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:45.080 his entire life analyzing. He was seeing the 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:47.799 input side of the equation in the most visceral, 00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:50.240 real -world way possible. He wasn't just getting 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:52.139 a spreadsheet emailed to him. He was the one 00:10:52.139 --> 00:10:54.860 writing it down. Right. He knew that data wasn't 00:10:54.860 --> 00:10:57.679 just abstract numbers floating on a screen. It 00:10:57.679 --> 00:11:00.679 was a freezing cold morning in Illinois with 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:03.419 manure on your boots and a cow swinging her tail 00:11:03.419 --> 00:11:06.639 in your face. It's amazing foreshadowing. He 00:11:06.639 --> 00:11:09.220 explicitly said later in life that he liked math 00:11:09.220 --> 00:11:12.379 more than billing hay. He saw that programming 00:11:12.379 --> 00:11:16.120 computers was, his word, easier and had far bigger 00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:18.139 benefits for the industry. So you have these 00:11:18.139 --> 00:11:21.279 two guys, both farm kids, both intimately familiar 00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:23.940 with the sweat and the smell of a dairy, but 00:11:23.940 --> 00:11:27.200 they both saw... the matrix, so to speak. They 00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:29.879 saw the data behind the cows, not just the physical 00:11:29.879 --> 00:11:32.039 animals themselves. But before they could team 00:11:32.039 --> 00:11:34.179 up and literally change the world, George Wiggins 00:11:34.179 --> 00:11:36.919 took a detour that I think is just, it's wild. 00:11:37.159 --> 00:11:39.120 It's the absolute last thing you'd expect in 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:40.960 a story about dairy genetics. This is the part 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:42.860 of the source material that completely blew my 00:11:42.860 --> 00:11:45.519 mind. Before he went to the USDA, before he settled 00:11:45.519 --> 00:11:48.789 into the lab, Wiggins went To Laos. Laos during 00:11:48.789 --> 00:11:51.309 the Vietnam War era. Yes. He went to the International 00:11:51.309 --> 00:11:53.870 Voluntary Services. And this wasn't some cushy 00:11:53.870 --> 00:11:57.230 study abroad program or vacation. This was incredibly 00:11:57.230 --> 00:11:59.389 dangerous. You're talking about an active conflict 00:11:59.389 --> 00:12:02.070 zone right next door. Exactly. Volunteers in 00:12:02.070 --> 00:12:03.870 that region had literally been assassinated. 00:12:04.049 --> 00:12:06.710 It was so volatile that Wiggins and his wife 00:12:06.710 --> 00:12:09.389 were restricted to provincial centers just for 00:12:09.389 --> 00:12:11.590 their own physical safety. Talk about high stakes. 00:12:11.769 --> 00:12:14.350 Why even go? What was going through his head 00:12:14.350 --> 00:12:16.590 to leave the safety of the U .S. for that? He 00:12:16.590 --> 00:12:19.769 genuinely wanted to help. He had this deep drive 00:12:19.769 --> 00:12:22.690 to improve agriculture on a global scale, to 00:12:22.690 --> 00:12:25.090 help people feed themselves. But he learned a 00:12:25.090 --> 00:12:27.710 lesson over there that became the absolute foundation 00:12:27.710 --> 00:12:31.029 of his entire career. Which was? He realized 00:12:31.029 --> 00:12:33.830 that you can't just tell farmers to change their 00:12:33.830 --> 00:12:36.210 practices. You can't just walk into a village 00:12:36.210 --> 00:12:38.750 or walk into a tie stall barn, for that matter, 00:12:38.830 --> 00:12:41.070 and say, hey, do this differently because my 00:12:41.070 --> 00:12:43.450 book says so. Oh, that is a universal truth. 00:12:43.850 --> 00:12:46.190 Whether you are standing in a rice paddy in Laos 00:12:46.190 --> 00:12:49.309 or a milking parlor in Wisconsin, farmers are 00:12:49.309 --> 00:12:51.870 stubborn. And we have to be stubborn. We are 00:12:51.870 --> 00:12:54.090 incredibly risk -averse because one bad crop 00:12:54.090 --> 00:12:56.190 year or one bad breeding decision that ruins 00:12:56.190 --> 00:12:58.649 a generation of heifers can literally end the 00:12:58.649 --> 00:13:00.889 family farm. We don't have the luxury of adopting 00:13:00.889 --> 00:13:04.110 every new theory that comes along. Exactly. And 00:13:04.110 --> 00:13:06.850 Wiggins saw that firsthand. He learned that people 00:13:06.850 --> 00:13:10.230 only change when the results are absolutely undeniable. 00:13:10.590 --> 00:13:12.230 when they can see it working with their own two 00:13:12.230 --> 00:13:15.830 eyes. That is profound. And I think that specific 00:13:15.830 --> 00:13:18.450 philosophy is what made his later work so successful. 00:13:18.730 --> 00:13:21.049 He wasn't just sitting in an ivory tower building 00:13:21.049 --> 00:13:24.090 abstract math. He was building practical tools 00:13:24.090 --> 00:13:26.889 that prove themselves on the ground. He knew 00:13:26.889 --> 00:13:29.029 from his time in Laos that he had to win the 00:13:29.029 --> 00:13:31.450 farmer's trust with concrete results, not just 00:13:31.450 --> 00:13:33.570 a fancy theory. And then when he finally came 00:13:33.570 --> 00:13:35.730 back to the US, he didn't even go straight back 00:13:35.730 --> 00:13:38.330 to dairy cows. He took a job working at a school 00:13:38.330 --> 00:13:40.929 for emotionally disturbed children that happened 00:13:40.929 --> 00:13:44.009 to have a model farm attached to it. Huh. And 00:13:44.009 --> 00:13:46.129 guess what they milked? I couldn't believe this 00:13:46.129 --> 00:13:48.889 part. Goats. Goats. He became the goat guy for 00:13:48.889 --> 00:13:51.720 a while. actually a pretty complex genetic puzzle 00:13:51.720 --> 00:13:54.159 in itself. Goats have totally different seasonality 00:13:54.159 --> 00:13:56.240 for breeding, different milk components, different 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:58.919 challenges. Working with them probably really 00:13:58.919 --> 00:14:01.340 sharpened his skills in dealing with non -standard 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:04.220 data sets. So after all these detours, he finally 00:14:04.220 --> 00:14:06.960 gets to the USDA lab in Beltsville, Maryland. 00:14:07.419 --> 00:14:10.000 Paul Van Raden eventually joins him there. And 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:13.070 we have to pause. and set the scene for what 00:14:13.070 --> 00:14:15.129 the technology actually looked like at the time. 00:14:15.250 --> 00:14:17.529 Because this isn't iPads and cloud computing. 00:14:17.750 --> 00:14:20.389 No, we are talking the dark ages of computing. 00:14:20.669 --> 00:14:24.009 Yeah. Punch cards, giant reels of magnetic tape, 00:14:24.169 --> 00:14:26.970 batch processing that took up entire rooms. If 00:14:26.970 --> 00:14:29.309 you wanted a national genetic evaluation to see 00:14:29.309 --> 00:14:30.710 how your bulls were doing, it happened twice 00:14:30.710 --> 00:14:33.289 a year. Twice a year. Imagine trying to run a 00:14:33.289 --> 00:14:35.409 business that way today. You're picking a bull 00:14:35.409 --> 00:14:38.090 out of a catalog, and the data printed next to 00:14:38.090 --> 00:14:40.129 his picture is already six months out of date. 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:42.820 You're basically flying blind, guessing based 00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:45.580 on old information. It was incredibly slow. It 00:14:45.580 --> 00:14:48.340 was clunky. And for guys who like speed and efficiency, 00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:51.240 it had to be beyond frustrating. Their mission, 00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:53.279 whether they knew it on day one or not, was to 00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:56.779 drag this completely analog sluggish system kicking 00:14:56.779 --> 00:14:59.159 and screaming into the digital age. And they 00:14:59.159 --> 00:15:02.159 ended up doing it together for 38 years. 38 years 00:15:02.159 --> 00:15:05.620 in the same lab. That kind of partnership is 00:15:05.620 --> 00:15:09.120 just so rare anywhere, let alone in high level 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:12.580 science. John Cole, who worked closely with them, 00:15:12.620 --> 00:15:14.279 said it's difficult to think of another pair 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:16.940 of animal breeders who were so influential as 00:15:16.940 --> 00:15:19.460 a team. They were basically a marriage of minds. 00:15:20.009 --> 00:15:22.230 And what made it work was they had this perfect 00:15:22.230 --> 00:15:24.289 division of labor. They didn't step on each other's 00:15:24.289 --> 00:15:27.230 toes. Van Raiden was the theorist. He was the 00:15:27.230 --> 00:15:29.970 guy developing the incredibly dense statistical 00:15:29.970 --> 00:15:33.090 methodology, the genomic predictions, the deep 00:15:33.090 --> 00:15:36.529 heavy math. Wiggins was the builder. He managed 00:15:36.529 --> 00:15:38.870 the operational systems. He was the one making 00:15:38.870 --> 00:15:41.110 sure that Van Raiden's brilliant theories actually 00:15:41.110 --> 00:15:43.450 got translated into evaluations that could be 00:15:43.450 --> 00:15:45.769 generated, printed, and sent out to the farmers. 00:15:45.950 --> 00:15:48.090 One guy designed the engine. The other guy built 00:15:48.090 --> 00:15:49.750 the car and made sure it could actually run on 00:15:49.750 --> 00:15:52.049 the highway you absolutely need both without 00:15:52.049 --> 00:15:54.470 the theory the system is dumb but without the 00:15:54.470 --> 00:15:57.169 builder the theory is just a research paper sitting 00:15:57.169 --> 00:15:59.570 in a dusty drawer that never helps a single dairy 00:15:59.570 --> 00:16:02.470 farmer so let's talk about the first really big 00:16:02.470 --> 00:16:04.889 monster they tackled together the struggle of 00:16:04.889 --> 00:16:08.090 breeding before 1994 oh i remember hearing the 00:16:08.090 --> 00:16:11.179 older guys talk about this before 1994 picking 00:16:11.179 --> 00:16:14.259 a bowl wasn't a science it was like a loud argument 00:16:14.259 --> 00:16:17.519 at a coffee shop how so well you had one farmer 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:19.919 who was completely obsessed with milk volume 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:22.600 he just wanted pounds of fluid in the tank another 00:16:22.600 --> 00:16:24.419 guy was totally obsessed with type he wanted 00:16:24.419 --> 00:16:27.600 tall showy cows another guy was worried about 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:30.840 longevity and feet and legs and there was no 00:16:30.840 --> 00:16:33.759 standard way to compare any of this it was totally 00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:36.480 apples and oranges. It was just chaos. You had 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:38.559 all these individual traits floating around on 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:41.279 the page with no anchor. It was. You were trying 00:16:41.279 --> 00:16:43.720 to balance all these biological traits with no 00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:46.159 actual dollar value attached to them. I mean, 00:16:46.179 --> 00:16:49.279 is 500 more pounds of milk worth more than a 00:16:49.279 --> 00:16:52.220 two -point increase in utter composite? Who knew? 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:54.860 It was entirely subjective. It was a guessing 00:16:54.860 --> 00:16:59.720 game. Enter Wiggins and Van Raden. In 1994, they 00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:01.600 helped create something that changed the entire 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:05.859 paradigm. Net merit. Net merit dollars. NMA. 00:17:06.279 --> 00:17:09.119 This literally changed everything about how we 00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:12.380 breed cows. It took production, health, fertility, 00:17:12.619 --> 00:17:15.640 longevity, and confirmation. And it collapsed 00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:19.720 all of that complex biology into one single number. 00:17:19.799 --> 00:17:22.619 One number to rule them all. Exactly. It finally 00:17:22.619 --> 00:17:25.619 put a concrete price tag on the genetics. It 00:17:25.619 --> 00:17:28.339 told the farmer, plain and simple, this cow will 00:17:28.339 --> 00:17:30.839 make you X amount more profit over her lifetime 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:33.970 than that cow. It took the emotional bias out 00:17:33.970 --> 00:17:36.230 of the decision and replaced it with cold, hard 00:17:36.230 --> 00:17:38.990 economics. But surely there was pushback. I can 00:17:38.990 --> 00:17:40.789 easily imagine farmers looking at this and saying, 00:17:40.869 --> 00:17:43.450 you can't just reduce a living, breathing cow 00:17:43.450 --> 00:17:45.930 to a single dollar sign. Oh, absolutely. There 00:17:45.930 --> 00:17:48.190 is always massive pushback when you change a 00:17:48.190 --> 00:17:50.670 deeply ingrained culture. People said, the computer 00:17:50.670 --> 00:17:52.150 doesn't know what a good udder looks like in 00:17:52.150 --> 00:17:54.470 the parlor. Or they'd say, you're completely 00:17:54.470 --> 00:17:56.809 ignoring the art of breeding. And they had a 00:17:56.809 --> 00:17:59.230 point, right? To some extent, yes. They were, 00:17:59.390 --> 00:18:01.910 right breeding is an art. You still need good 00:18:01.910 --> 00:18:05.930 cow sense. But Wiggins and Van Raden weren't 00:18:05.930 --> 00:18:07.609 trying to kill the art. They were just trying 00:18:07.609 --> 00:18:09.890 to give the artist a much better brush. They 00:18:09.890 --> 00:18:12.329 were saying, look, here is the economic reality. 00:18:12.609 --> 00:18:14.789 You can choose to ignore it if you want. But 00:18:14.789 --> 00:18:17.349 this index reflects what the milk market actually 00:18:17.349 --> 00:18:20.289 pays for. They were grounding the art in science. 00:18:20.430 --> 00:18:23.390 Yeah. Giving it a financial floor. Exactly. And 00:18:23.390 --> 00:18:26.490 over time. The money won the argument. It always 00:18:26.490 --> 00:18:29.470 does. Farmers realized that the high net merit 00:18:29.470 --> 00:18:32.549 cows actually did last longer. They bred back 00:18:32.549 --> 00:18:35.390 faster and they made more profitable milk. The 00:18:35.390 --> 00:18:37.890 undeniable proof was right there in the bulk 00:18:37.890 --> 00:18:40.490 tank. And remember the lesson from Laos. When 00:18:40.490 --> 00:18:42.569 the results are undeniable, the farmers change. 00:18:42.849 --> 00:18:44.910 Full circle. But they didn't stop there. They 00:18:44.910 --> 00:18:47.210 didn't just build the indexing coast. And this 00:18:47.210 --> 00:18:49.069 next part of the deep dive is honestly like a 00:18:49.069 --> 00:18:51.309 detective story. They started looking for what 00:18:51.309 --> 00:18:53.680 wasn't there. This is the Sherlock Holmes aspect 00:18:53.680 --> 00:18:56.299 of their work, the discovery of lethal recessives. 00:18:56.380 --> 00:18:57.720 Explain that to us, because this is where the 00:18:57.720 --> 00:18:59.900 science gets really fascinating. What exactly 00:18:59.900 --> 00:19:02.180 were they looking for? Okay, so picture this. 00:19:02.380 --> 00:19:05.140 They are looking at the entire bovine genome, 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:08.160 and they are breaking it down into smaller segments 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:11.119 called haplotypes. Think of haplotypes kind of 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:13.680 like paragraphs in a massive book. And because 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:16.200 of the database they built, they have this genetic 00:19:16.200 --> 00:19:19.339 data on thousands and thousands of animals. Okay, 00:19:19.400 --> 00:19:22.359 I'm with you. Paragraphs in a book. Right. Statistically 00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:25.220 speaking, if a certain paragraph, a certain haplotype 00:19:25.220 --> 00:19:27.460 is really common in the Holstein population, 00:19:27.859 --> 00:19:29.900 you should eventually see an animal that has 00:19:29.900 --> 00:19:32.740 two copies of it. One inherited from the sire, 00:19:32.839 --> 00:19:35.700 one from the dam. It's just inevitable. Unless. 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:39.559 Unless that specific combination of genes kills 00:19:39.559 --> 00:19:42.400 the animal before it's even born. Wow. So the 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:44.839 complete absence of the animal is the clue they 00:19:44.839 --> 00:19:46.740 were looking for. Exactly. They ran the massive 00:19:46.740 --> 00:19:49.039 data sets and found these specific segments where 00:19:49.039 --> 00:19:51.710 they never. ever saw a living calf with a double 00:19:51.710 --> 00:19:54.890 dose. Not once. That silence, that completely 00:19:54.890 --> 00:19:57.329 missing data point in the spreadsheets, was the 00:19:57.329 --> 00:20:00.049 smoking gun. It meant that if an embryo happened 00:20:00.049 --> 00:20:02.309 to get both copies of that haplotype, it died 00:20:02.309 --> 00:20:04.789 in utero. These are the haplotypes we see flagged 00:20:04.789 --> 00:20:08.109 on semen lists now, right? HH1, HH2, HH3, and 00:20:08.109 --> 00:20:11.309 so on. Yes, exactly. And here is why this matters 00:20:11.309 --> 00:20:14.349 so intensely to you on the farm. Before they 00:20:14.349 --> 00:20:16.529 discovered this invisible killer, you would breed 00:20:16.529 --> 00:20:19.430 a cow, and maybe she wouldn't settle. Or worse, 00:20:19.670 --> 00:20:22.230 you'd confirm her pregnant, and then she'd slip 00:20:22.230 --> 00:20:25.170 the calf early and come back into heat. And what 00:20:25.170 --> 00:20:27.009 did farmers think was happening? You'd blame 00:20:27.009 --> 00:20:28.589 everything else. You'd think, oh, it's just bad 00:20:28.589 --> 00:20:31.650 luck, or maybe the ration is off, or it was a 00:20:31.650 --> 00:20:34.130 really hot week, must be heat stress. But it 00:20:34.130 --> 00:20:36.759 was actually a genetic time bomb. It was. The 00:20:36.759 --> 00:20:42.539 math showed it was a 3 .0 to 3 .7 % drop in conception 00:20:42.539 --> 00:20:45.019 rate for those specific carrier -to -carrier 00:20:45.019 --> 00:20:48.299 matings. Now, you can't see a dead microscopic 00:20:48.299 --> 00:20:51.440 embryo in a straw of semen, but you can absolutely 00:20:51.440 --> 00:20:53.640 see the hole in your wallet when a cow is open 00:20:53.640 --> 00:20:56.299 for an extra 40 days. And the beauty of it is, 00:20:56.339 --> 00:20:58.160 they didn't just write a paper about the problem. 00:20:58.339 --> 00:21:01.339 They built the system to fix it. Right. They 00:21:01.339 --> 00:21:03.440 integrated it right into the mating software. 00:21:03.960 --> 00:21:06.880 Now, when your AI rep runs your herd through 00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:09.799 the program, it automatically flags those carrier 00:21:09.799 --> 00:21:12.000 -by -carrier matings and stops you from making 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:14.359 the mistake in the first place. They saved the 00:21:14.359 --> 00:21:16.460 dairy industry millions and millions of dollars 00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:18.920 silently just by preventing pregnancies that 00:21:18.920 --> 00:21:21.500 were biologically doomed from the start. That 00:21:21.500 --> 00:21:23.619 is incredible. It's like they installed a hidden 00:21:23.619 --> 00:21:26.839 safety switch on the entire national herd. But 00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:29.119 the real explosion in their timeline, the moment 00:21:29.119 --> 00:21:31.480 the graph line just abandons all logic and shoots 00:21:31.480 --> 00:21:34.349 straight up vertically, was 2009. The genomic 00:21:34.349 --> 00:21:37.069 revolution. Talk to me about the 50k SMP chip, 00:21:37.210 --> 00:21:39.190 because that's the piece of hardware that changed 00:21:39.190 --> 00:21:41.950 everything. Okay, so to be clear, other brilliant 00:21:41.950 --> 00:21:44.369 researchers developed the chip itself. It's essentially 00:21:44.369 --> 00:21:46.849 a glass slide that lets you look at roughly 54 00:21:46.849 --> 00:21:49.789 ,000 specific genetic markers on an animal's 00:21:49.789 --> 00:21:53.230 DNA and do it cheaply. It's like having 50 ,000 00:21:53.230 --> 00:21:55.569 individual mile markers on a highway instead 00:21:55.569 --> 00:21:57.569 of just knowing the start and end points of the 00:21:57.569 --> 00:21:59.980 road. But having the markers on a slide is one 00:21:59.980 --> 00:22:02.259 thing. Actually knowing what they mean for the 00:22:02.259 --> 00:22:04.579 cow standing in front of you is a completely 00:22:04.579 --> 00:22:07.099 different challenge. Right. That was the monumental 00:22:07.099 --> 00:22:10.619 hurdle. Wiggins and Van Raden had to figure out 00:22:10.619 --> 00:22:13.700 how to take that mountain of raw DNA data and 00:22:13.700 --> 00:22:16.500 make it useful. How do you take a blood or hair 00:22:16.500 --> 00:22:19.420 sample from a day -old calf and turn it into 00:22:19.420 --> 00:22:21.759 a highly accurate prediction of how much milk 00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:24.079 her son's daughters will give in five years? 00:22:24.359 --> 00:22:27.069 It sounds like science fiction. But Wiggins called 00:22:27.069 --> 00:22:29.690 the use of those markers an inspired choice. 00:22:29.930 --> 00:22:31.910 It truly was. And when they finally launched 00:22:31.910 --> 00:22:35.170 the official USDA genomic evaluations in January 00:22:35.170 --> 00:22:38.630 of 2009, the results were just absolutely staggering. 00:22:38.910 --> 00:22:40.609 I have the numbers from the source material right 00:22:40.609 --> 00:22:43.650 here. Yeah. Genetic gain for yield traits. So 00:22:43.650 --> 00:22:46.970 milk, fat, protein increased 50 to 100 percent 00:22:46.970 --> 00:22:49.069 almost overnight. And fitness traits, things 00:22:49.069 --> 00:22:51.190 that are traditionally so hard to breed for, 00:22:51.309 --> 00:22:54.180 like health and daughter pregnancy rates. three 00:22:54.180 --> 00:22:56.279 to four times the historical games. Three to 00:22:56.279 --> 00:22:58.740 four times. Think deeply about that for a second. 00:22:59.119 --> 00:23:01.759 For decades, the industry struggled just to maintain 00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:04.920 fertility. We were selecting so heavily for massive 00:23:04.920 --> 00:23:08.000 milk volume that we were inadvertently burning 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.539 the cows out. We were losing ground on health 00:23:10.539 --> 00:23:12.839 traits year after year. Because you couldn't 00:23:12.839 --> 00:23:15.380 easily measure it. Exactly. But suddenly with 00:23:15.380 --> 00:23:18.839 genomics, we could see the actual genes responsible 00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:22.640 for fertility directly in the DNA. We could actively 00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:25.119 select for them on day one without waiting for 00:23:25.119 --> 00:23:28.339 a bull to have 500 daughters milking in 10 different 00:23:28.339 --> 00:23:30.319 states. And that's where the generation interval 00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:32.960 completely collapsed. It dropped from seven years 00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:35.940 to basically the biological minimum. That is 00:23:35.940 --> 00:23:38.359 the speed Wiggins was looking for back in college. 00:23:38.599 --> 00:23:41.720 Before 2009, you had to wait for a bull to be 00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:44.119 five or six years old before his proof was reliable 00:23:44.119 --> 00:23:47.319 enough to trust heavily. Now? Now you can confidently 00:23:47.319 --> 00:23:50.140 trust a two -month -old bull calf. You are turning 00:23:50.140 --> 00:23:53.259 the genetic crank so much faster. I really wonder 00:23:53.259 --> 00:23:56.180 how it felt for the two of them. To sit in that 00:23:56.180 --> 00:23:58.819 somewhat plain lab in Beltsville, look at their 00:23:58.819 --> 00:24:01.529 monitors, And watch the genetic progress graph 00:24:01.529 --> 00:24:03.930 line just go vertical. To know they had actually 00:24:03.930 --> 00:24:06.049 unlocked something that massive. I think for 00:24:06.049 --> 00:24:08.829 Wiggins, it just validated everything he learned 00:24:08.829 --> 00:24:11.910 back in Laos. How so? He said farmers change 00:24:11.910 --> 00:24:15.329 when results are undeniable. Genomics was undeniable. 00:24:15.650 --> 00:24:18.049 Think about how stubborn we established farmers 00:24:18.049 --> 00:24:21.240 are. Yet... The shift from relying strictly on 00:24:21.240 --> 00:24:24.440 proven sires to heavily using genomic young sires 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:27.500 was arguably the fastest, most aggressive adoption 00:24:27.500 --> 00:24:30.339 of new technology in the entire history of agriculture. 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:32.680 Farmers just dropped the old way completely. 00:24:33.039 --> 00:24:34.900 They did, because the new way worked, and it 00:24:34.900 --> 00:24:37.279 worked fast. They saw the genomic heifers hitting 00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:39.720 the ground, calving in and milking circles around 00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:41.700 their own dams. You can't argue with the bulk 00:24:41.700 --> 00:24:43.779 tank. And the financial numbers absolutely back 00:24:43.779 --> 00:24:46.220 it up. Wiggins documented that the average net 00:24:46.220 --> 00:24:48.839 merit gain across the breed jumped from $40 a 00:24:48.839 --> 00:24:52.480 year before genomics to $85 a year after 2010. 00:24:53.069 --> 00:24:55.250 That is the doubling we talked about right at 00:24:55.250 --> 00:24:57.789 the start of this deep dive. They literally doubled 00:24:57.789 --> 00:25:00.910 the speed of evolution in dairy cattle. It's 00:25:00.910 --> 00:25:02.990 breathtaking when you step back and look at it. 00:25:03.049 --> 00:25:05.289 And the database just kept feeding itself. It 00:25:05.289 --> 00:25:08.750 grew exponentially. By 2025, they had amassed 00:25:08.750 --> 00:25:12.269 over 12 million genotypes in the system. It's 00:25:12.269 --> 00:25:15.529 a massive positive feedback loop. The more data 00:25:15.529 --> 00:25:17.630 you feed into the system, the more accurate the 00:25:17.630 --> 00:25:19.849 predictions become. And because the predictions 00:25:19.849 --> 00:25:22.269 are so accurate, more farmers want to test their 00:25:22.269 --> 00:25:25.069 animals, which gives you even more data. They 00:25:25.069 --> 00:25:27.410 engineered a self -sustaining engine of progress. 00:25:27.849 --> 00:25:31.009 So bringing it from history right up to the present 00:25:31.009 --> 00:25:33.529 day, we have this massive, beautifully functioning 00:25:33.529 --> 00:25:36.910 system. But it's not static. It's a living thing 00:25:36.910 --> 00:25:39.380 that has to adapt to the real world. And there 00:25:39.380 --> 00:25:42.319 is a very big shift happening right now in 2025. 00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:45.900 The April 2025 net merit revision. This is where 00:25:45.900 --> 00:25:48.160 the theoretical history meets the road for you 00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:50.240 listening today. What shifted in the formula? 00:25:50.579 --> 00:25:52.839 Why did they feel the need to rewrite the math 00:25:52.839 --> 00:25:55.559 now? Well, the consumer market shifted, so the 00:25:55.559 --> 00:25:58.460 math absolutely had to shift to keep pace. The 00:25:58.460 --> 00:26:00.420 biggest change is they put significantly more 00:26:00.420 --> 00:26:04.460 emphasis on butterfat. It's now up to 31 .8 % 00:26:04.460 --> 00:26:07.319 of the entire formula. At the same time, they 00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:10.319 pulled back the emphasis on protein. Why such 00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:13.160 a strong pivot to fat? For years, it was all 00:26:13.160 --> 00:26:15.539 about protein. Because butterfat is where the 00:26:15.539 --> 00:26:18.480 actual milk check money is right now. Consumer 00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:21.819 habits changed. People want full -fat dairy again. 00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:24.359 They want real butter. They want premium high 00:26:24.359 --> 00:26:26.259 -fat ice cream. They want whole milk lattes. 00:26:26.299 --> 00:26:28.779 The market is practically screaming for fat. 00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:31.400 That makes sense. But they also made other crucial 00:26:31.400 --> 00:26:34.180 tweaks. They increased the weight on feed efficiency, 00:26:34.500 --> 00:26:36.819 the feed -saved trait, because feed costs are 00:26:36.819 --> 00:26:39.859 astronomical. And they heavily adjusted the formula 00:26:39.859 --> 00:26:41.960 to account for the currently high prices we're 00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:45.200 seeing for cull cows and bull calves. So if you 00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:47.180 are a producer and you aren't paying close attention 00:26:47.180 --> 00:26:49.700 to these new weights in the index, you might 00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:52.079 unknowingly be breeding for the market of 2020, 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:56.230 not the market of 2025. Exactly. You are breeding 00:26:56.230 --> 00:26:59.109 for a ghost market. If you are still flipping 00:26:59.109 --> 00:27:01.769 through the catalog, chasing sheer protein volume 00:27:01.769 --> 00:27:04.849 above all else, you are actively fighting the 00:27:04.849 --> 00:27:07.410 index. You are building a biological factory 00:27:07.410 --> 00:27:10.089 that produces a product the consumer market is 00:27:10.089 --> 00:27:12.569 telling you it wants less of. And for our listeners 00:27:12.569 --> 00:27:14.210 across the border, it's important to note this 00:27:14.210 --> 00:27:16.269 isn't just a U .S. phenomenon. Right. Our Canadian 00:27:16.269 --> 00:27:19.869 friends just went through a similar shift. overhauled 00:27:19.869 --> 00:27:22.410 the LPI, the Lifetime Performance Index, and 00:27:22.410 --> 00:27:25.569 the PRO formula in April 2025 as well. It's a 00:27:25.569 --> 00:27:28.430 global trend. It is. The underlying science is 00:27:28.430 --> 00:27:31.150 shared globally. In fact, Wiggins and Van Raden's 00:27:31.150 --> 00:27:33.450 work on creating a shared genotype repository 00:27:33.450 --> 00:27:36.670 helped make that international cooperation possible. 00:27:36.950 --> 00:27:39.589 But the economic formulas get tweaked for regional 00:27:39.589 --> 00:27:41.690 differences, like the Canadian quota system. 00:27:41.910 --> 00:27:45.210 But the overarching trend is universal. Breed 00:27:45.210 --> 00:27:47.589 for extreme feed efficiency and high solids. 00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:50.599 It really is a legacy that spans borders and 00:27:50.599 --> 00:27:52.960 generations. Wiggins officially retired back 00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:55.000 in 2016, but of course he kept working as an 00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:57.519 active advisor. And then Radin is still at it, 00:27:57.539 --> 00:27:59.940 still refining the math to these 2025 revisions. 00:28:00.220 --> 00:28:02.380 John Cole really did summarize it perfectly. 00:28:03.059 --> 00:28:05.380 Difficult to think of another pair of animal 00:28:05.380 --> 00:28:09.180 breeders who were so influential as a team. They 00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:11.359 gave up the spotlight and stared in the lab for 00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:14.559 almost four decades just so you could milk better, 00:28:14.740 --> 00:28:18.839 healthier, more profitable cows. All right, Jake, 00:28:18.980 --> 00:28:21.299 I mean, let's pivot to the now what for the listener. 00:28:21.420 --> 00:28:23.440 Yeah, let's get practical. We have folks listening 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:25.539 to this while running the mixer wagon or standing 00:28:25.539 --> 00:28:28.619 in the parlor or driving to the feed mill. They 00:28:28.619 --> 00:28:30.960 can't sit down and do the calculus that Wiggins 00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:35.900 did, but they absolutely can and should use the 00:28:35.900 --> 00:28:37.960 tool he built. Right. You don't need to be a 00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:39.700 master mechanic to drive a high -performance 00:28:39.700 --> 00:28:41.940 truck, but you do need to know how to shift the 00:28:41.940 --> 00:28:44.039 gears properly so you don't blow the transmission. 00:28:44.339 --> 00:28:46.480 So let's give them the playbook, the bar in math. 00:28:47.450 --> 00:28:49.230 Based on everything we've talked about with the 00:28:49.230 --> 00:28:51.349 index and the revisions, what should they be 00:28:51.349 --> 00:28:53.509 doing when they turn this audio off? I like to 00:28:53.509 --> 00:28:57.309 break it down into a simple 30, 90, and 365 -day 00:28:57.309 --> 00:29:00.630 plan, concrete, actionable steps. Okay, let's 00:29:00.630 --> 00:29:02.950 start with the immediate term, right now, the 00:29:02.950 --> 00:29:06.390 next 30 days. Step one, in the next 30 days, 00:29:07.009 --> 00:29:10.710 pull your herd's actual net merit average. Call 00:29:10.710 --> 00:29:12.670 your tester, look at your software, and do it 00:29:12.670 --> 00:29:15.170 today. You need to compare your herd average 00:29:15.170 --> 00:29:19.569 to the new April 2025 genetic base. And for context, 00:29:19.869 --> 00:29:22.890 that base is the average of all the cows born 00:29:22.890 --> 00:29:25.769 in 2020. And what if a farmer looks at that number 00:29:25.769 --> 00:29:29.609 and sees they are below zero? If you are below 00:29:29.609 --> 00:29:32.809 zero dollars on that new base, you have to realize 00:29:32.809 --> 00:29:35.789 you are losing ground fast. Remember the speed 00:29:35.789 --> 00:29:38.369 of progress we talked about? The entire breed 00:29:38.369 --> 00:29:41.589 is moving forward at a clip of $85 a year. If 00:29:41.589 --> 00:29:44.069 you are just standing still, or if your genetics 00:29:44.069 --> 00:29:46.890 are below average, that profit gap between you 00:29:46.890 --> 00:29:49.329 and your neighbor is widening every single day. 00:29:49.430 --> 00:29:51.470 You are bleeding competitive advantage. Okay, 00:29:51.549 --> 00:29:53.410 so that's step one. What else in the next 30 00:29:53.410 --> 00:29:55.109 days? There's a specific phone call they need 00:29:55.109 --> 00:29:57.589 to make, right? Yes. Step two, pick up the phone, 00:29:57.730 --> 00:30:00.049 call your AI representative, and ask them one 00:30:00.049 --> 00:30:02.970 very specific question. Which lethal haplotypes 00:30:02.970 --> 00:30:05.470 do the sires sitting in my semen tank right now 00:30:05.470 --> 00:30:07.869 carry? addressing the fertility leak we talked 00:30:07.869 --> 00:30:10.670 about. You have to fix it. If you are unknowingly 00:30:10.670 --> 00:30:13.670 using a bull that is a known carrier for HH1, 00:30:13.829 --> 00:30:16.210 and you are breeding him randomly to cows in 00:30:16.210 --> 00:30:18.609 your herd that are also carriers, you are just 00:30:18.609 --> 00:30:22.690 willingly accepting a 3 .7 % dip in conception. 00:30:23.470 --> 00:30:25.490 Why on earth would you do that? It's throwing 00:30:25.490 --> 00:30:28.089 money away. It is entirely an unforced error. 00:30:28.289 --> 00:30:30.769 The software exists to stop it, but you have 00:30:30.769 --> 00:30:32.930 to make sure your rep is actually utilizing that 00:30:32.930 --> 00:30:35.150 tool when they run your mating program. That 00:30:35.150 --> 00:30:37.599 makes perfect sense. Okay, let's move out a bit. 00:30:38.940 --> 00:30:42.400 The medium term. The next 90 days. Step three 00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:45.539 in the next 90 days. Do a hard audit of your 00:30:45.539 --> 00:30:48.380 herd's genetic diversity. In the genomic era, 00:30:48.539 --> 00:30:51.420 it is so incredibly easy to get swept up in the 00:30:51.420 --> 00:30:53.900 hype. We all get excited about the hot new bull 00:30:53.900 --> 00:30:55.839 that tops the list, and suddenly everyone is 00:30:55.839 --> 00:30:58.460 using his sons, his grandsons, and his great 00:30:58.460 --> 00:31:00.640 -grandsons. So what's the danger threshold? What's 00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:02.509 the rule of thumb they should look for? If one 00:31:02.509 --> 00:31:05.430 single sire or one highly related sire family 00:31:05.430 --> 00:31:08.349 makes up more than 15 % of your replacement heifers, 00:31:08.509 --> 00:31:10.809 you have exposed yourself to a massive risk. 00:31:10.930 --> 00:31:13.750 Because of the unknown. Exactly. If that specific 00:31:13.750 --> 00:31:16.490 family turns out to have a hidden genetic defect 00:31:16.490 --> 00:31:19.109 that science hasn't found yet, or if they just 00:31:19.109 --> 00:31:21.609 don't pan out the way the early genomic numbers 00:31:21.609 --> 00:31:24.309 predicted, you've put all your eggs in one basket. 00:31:24.410 --> 00:31:27.470 The most advanced math in the world cannot fix 00:31:27.470 --> 00:31:30.210 bad risk management on the farm level. Keep your 00:31:30.210 --> 00:31:33.259 portfolio diverse. Solid advice. And finally, 00:31:33.380 --> 00:31:38.599 the long game. The 365 -day strategy. Step four, 00:31:38.759 --> 00:31:40.640 looking at your strategy over the next year. 00:31:40.779 --> 00:31:43.619 Check your young sire ratio. Look deeply at your 00:31:43.619 --> 00:31:46.480 breeding log. If more than 50 % of your matings 00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:50.539 are to very young, unproven genomic sire's bulls 00:31:50.539 --> 00:31:53.799 with less than, say, 75 % reliability, you just 00:31:53.799 --> 00:31:56.130 need to... consciously understand the trade -off 00:31:56.130 --> 00:31:58.029 you're making. You are trading predictability 00:31:58.029 --> 00:32:00.829 and stability for absolute maximum speed. Is 00:32:00.829 --> 00:32:03.089 that necessarily a bad thing, though? Not necessarily. 00:32:03.289 --> 00:32:05.089 Like I said earlier, speed is good. I really 00:32:05.089 --> 00:32:07.990 like speed and genetic progress. But you have 00:32:07.990 --> 00:32:10.450 to respect that it comes with variance. Some 00:32:10.450 --> 00:32:12.029 of those young bulls are going to drop in the 00:32:12.029 --> 00:32:13.730 rankings once their daughters actually start 00:32:13.730 --> 00:32:16.990 milking. Some will rise. You just need to make 00:32:16.990 --> 00:32:19.369 sure that aggressive strategy is a conscious, 00:32:19.589 --> 00:32:22.750 calculated business choice and not an accident 00:32:22.750 --> 00:32:25.829 just because the semen was cheap. Don't bet the 00:32:25.829 --> 00:32:28.029 farm on a stack of lottery tickets if you can't 00:32:28.029 --> 00:32:31.029 afford a few losing scratch -offs. That is just 00:32:31.029 --> 00:32:33.390 incredibly practical. It really takes all this 00:32:33.390 --> 00:32:36.410 high -level, invisible science and makes it highly 00:32:36.410 --> 00:32:38.890 visible and actionable right there in the barn. 00:32:39.049 --> 00:32:41.769 That's the entire goal. The math only matters 00:32:41.769 --> 00:32:44.380 if it changes what happens in the parlor. You 00:32:44.380 --> 00:32:46.359 know, as we wrap this deep dive up, I just keep 00:32:46.359 --> 00:32:48.359 thinking about that core image of the two of 00:32:48.359 --> 00:32:52.019 them, Wiggins and Van Ribben, spending 38 years 00:32:52.019 --> 00:32:54.339 working together in the exact same building. 00:32:54.579 --> 00:32:57.079 Never once chasing the fame, never trying to 00:32:57.079 --> 00:32:59.339 be the loud face of the dairy industry on magazine 00:32:59.339 --> 00:33:02.599 covers. They truly proved that the biggest, most 00:33:02.599 --> 00:33:05.099 sweeping changes in dairy don't always happen 00:33:05.099 --> 00:33:07.400 in the barn. Sometimes they happen on a tiny 00:33:07.400 --> 00:33:10.099 cardboard punch card, or a massive spreadsheet, 00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:13.660 or hidden deep in a database of 12 million animals. 00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:17.019 They were the invisible architects. And frankly, 00:33:17.160 --> 00:33:18.960 because of their relentless dedication to the 00:33:18.960 --> 00:33:21.220 data, the cows we are going to milk tomorrow 00:33:21.220 --> 00:33:23.180 are going to be infinitely better than the cows 00:33:23.180 --> 00:33:25.960 we milk today. That is a heck of a legacy to 00:33:25.960 --> 00:33:28.319 leave behind. It certainly is. A legacy that 00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:31.339 literally pays the bills for thousands of families. 00:33:32.109 --> 00:33:33.970 And for you listening, if you want to see the 00:33:33.970 --> 00:33:36.390 actual charts, dive into the historical data 00:33:36.390 --> 00:33:38.970 and get a full line -by -line breakdown of that 00:33:38.970 --> 00:33:42.349 2025 net merit revision we spent time on, head 00:33:42.349 --> 00:33:46.190 over to www .thebullvine .com. We've got the 00:33:46.190 --> 00:33:48.170 full story and all the resources right there. 00:33:48.269 --> 00:33:50.109 And trust me on this, you really want to read 00:33:50.109 --> 00:33:52.289 up on those new fat and protein economic weights 00:33:52.289 --> 00:33:54.710 before you finalize your next semen order. It 00:33:54.710 --> 00:33:57.710 will change how you breed. Absolutely. Dairy 00:33:57.710 --> 00:34:00.450 farmers are incredibly resilient people. And 00:34:00.450 --> 00:34:03.250 now... Thanks to the quiet work of men like Wiggins 00:34:03.250 --> 00:34:05.710 and Van Raden, you were armed with the best, 00:34:05.789 --> 00:34:08.389 most accurate data in the history of agriculture. 00:34:08.730 --> 00:34:11.090 Use it to your advantage. I couldn't have summarized 00:34:11.090 --> 00:34:13.610 it better myself. That's another powerful story 00:34:13.610 --> 00:34:15.909 from the Bullvine podcast. These are the people 00:34:15.909 --> 00:34:18.510 actively building the future of dairy. Find more 00:34:18.510 --> 00:34:22.989 deep dives and stories that matter at www .thebullvine 00:34:22.989 --> 00:34:26.230 .com. Next time we're taking a completely different 00:34:26.230 --> 00:34:28.989 track. We'll be talking to a young breeder who 00:34:28.989 --> 00:34:31.929 is actively taking extreme genomic outliers and 00:34:31.929 --> 00:34:33.789 doing something completely unheard of with them 00:34:33.789 --> 00:34:36.110 in his breeding program. You will want to hear 00:34:36.110 --> 00:34:38.170 this one. Make sure you subscribe so you don't 00:34:38.170 --> 00:34:40.889 miss it. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. 00:34:41.010 --> 00:34:41.909 Stay safe out there.