Looking For Piedmontese
The Piedmontese breed is very rare with less than 300.000 head in existence globally and about 12,000 head in North America today. They evolved in only one very tiny area of the world in north-west Italy and only a very few animals were ever exported out of that country into North America as live animal imports. A total of 6 females and 9 bulls (15 head) were brought here to make the genetic foundation of the herd. By the 1990s the import of semen from Italy was pos - sible and there is now a wealth of bloodlines to select from. The Piedmontese is the only breed in the world known to carry the inactive myostatin gene variant C313Y in a homozygous state (2 copies of the gene). USDA research has confirmed that this unique gene C313Y improves carcass performance (muscle), reduces fat and greatly improves beef tenderness. When you cross a 2-copy Piedmontese animal with a 0-copy (any other breed of cattle) the resulting calf will always carry 1-copy of the C313Y gene. These 1-copy animals also have the dramatically improved tenderness and carcass traits. The successful branded beef company Certified Piedmontese is based on this unique gene - with crossbred heterozygous (1-copy) slaughter animals being their main product line. All Fullblood and Naturalean Piedmontese that are regis- tered with NAPA are DNA test confirmed to be homozygous (2-copy) for this special gene. Every bull in the annual Piedmontese Classic Sale is fully registered with the Association and verified by DNA to be homozygous (2-copy) for the gene C313Y. The North American Piedmontese Association (NAPA) was formed in 2000 to serve breeders across all of North America and to drive breed improvement programs.
Today, NAPA is the largest registry for the breed on the conti - nent - and the second largest in the world, after the original Italian Association ANABORAPI. NAPA was the first ever cattle association to base animal reg - istration requirements on a specific gene - making it manda - tory to DNA test and verify the genetics prior to registration. NAPA launched the first Piedmontese Bull Performance Tests for the breed on this continent in 2007 - with annual tests organized every year since then. Having a centralized bull test has been a large part of the Association’s drive toward breed improvement. With the combination of accurate pedigree and genetic in - formation in the registry combined with professional perfor - mance evaluations, NAPA was then able to launch the EPD Project, and are now producing the first ever breed-specific EPDs for Piedmontese in North America. The NAPA custom EPDs are the ONLY genetic evaluations that take into account the profound effect of a gene (C313Y myostatin) on multiple different traits, like calving ease and birth wt. In fact, we calculate a CE and BW EPD for Piedmontese to Piedmontese matings, and a separate CE1C and BW1C EPD for that animal mated to a non-Piedmontese because 2-copy calves are significantly different than 1-copy calves! Many breeders have made good use of these improvement programs and are seeing immediate results in their herds. The Piedmontese is a terminal cross breed. If you are look - ing ahead, looking for beef yield, profit, and consistent beef tenderness you are looking for the Piedmontese breed. Visit www.piedmontese.org for further information.
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