Award for team effort in genetics

AgResearch senior scientist John McEwan (right) with Focus Genetics' Dr Richard Lee at the Beef...
AgResearch senior scientist John McEwan (right) with Focus Genetics' Dr Richard Lee at the Beef and Lamb New Zealand Sheep Industry Awards in Invercargill earlier this month. Photo by BLNZ.
AgResearch Invermay senior scientist John McEwan was delighted when he won the 2015 Focus Genetics Sheep Industry Science Award because it recognised a team effort, he said.

His name was on the award, but he accepted it on behalf of the other scientists in the AgResearch animal genomic group at Invermay.

It was presented at the Beef and Lamb New Zealand (BLNZ) Sheep Industry Awards in Invercargill earlier this month.

''I was very happy to receive the award as it was essentially an industry award and recognition by the industry that benefits from the work that we do,'' Mr McEwan said.

He was particularly pleased to see some of the breeders he had worked with also recognised, including Andrew Tripp, of Nithdale, who won the SIL-ACE Dual Purpose for Internal Parasite Resistance award for the fourth year in a row.

''He used technology we have developed.''

There were 56 nominations for the awards, of which 11 were in the science category.

Of those 11, four finalists were selected - Dave Leathwick, of AgResearch Grasslands, and Sin Phua, Shannon Clarke and Mr McEwan, of AgResearch Invermay, all of whom had worked together on various genetic projects.

Originally from a farm in Tokanui, Southland, Mr McEwan gained a biochemistry degree from the University of Otago.

''I have been involved in sheep genetics for very long time, for more than 25 years,'' Mr McEwan said.

Mr McEwan has been involved with sire referencing, and that led to contributing to the development of the Central Progeny Test, and the SIL-ACE (the Sheep Improvement Ltd Advanced Central Evaluation) genetic evaluation.

He was also involved with developing and evaluating CT-scanning for meat yield, WormFEC and breeding resistance for internal parasites, and also worked on developing DNA testing for sheep breeds, SNP chips (single nucleotide polymorphism chips) and the sequencing of sheep, cattle and deer genomes.

More recently he had worked on the genomic selection of more than 20 traits in maternal sheep.

He also worked on the Farm IQ project, to genetically select for meat quality traits.

He received funding from the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium and New Zealand Agricultural Gas Research Centre to look at the methane emissions of sheep and whether the level of emissions could be changed and what effect that would have on other productive traits.

''We have shown that [emissions reduction] is possible and now we need to know what consequences does that have.''

One of his present focuses is on developing cheaper genotype technologies.

Part of that study looks at ryegrass and white clover pasture.

Although the work has been ongoing for three or four years, it only received funding two years ago and he expected to see the results becoming available to the industry in about two to three years.

- Yvonne O'Hara 

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