A team of Charolais-Angus cross calves from the WA College of Agriculture, Harvey, took out this year's Harvey Beef Gate 2 Plate Challenge, one of Western Australia's premier carcase competitions.
It was the first time a school has won the event.
The college took the $5000 top prize, coming in ahead of 48 other entries from 39 other producers.
In total 13 Western Australian beef enterprises shared between them more than $18,000 worth of prize money.
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Harvey Beef Gate 2 Plate Challenge president Jarrod Carroll said the challenge was all about helping cow/calf producers gain valuable information to improve their herds into the future.
"While the cattle were in great condition this year and performed well our number of entries was back and I think this had a lot to do with producers taking the opportunity to sell their calves early due to the strength of the cattle market," he said.
The scoring system for the competition is based on factors that are measurable and influence profitability at each stage of the supply chain and eating quality, which is important for the consumer.
The teams of three (two steers and one heifer) owner-bred cattle are all individually scored for their feedlot performance (50 points), processing performance (50 points) and MSA grading (25 points) before the points are combined to give a team score out of 375 points.
There is also room for the teams to score bonus points in each section when they show consistency of performance within the group.
All the teams were fed in the Willyung Farms feedlot, at Albany, with the heifers on feed for 76 days and the steers 83 days before they were processed at Harvey Beef.
WACOA Harvey, assistant farm manager and beef technical officer Ian Millichamp said the college had been entering the competition since 2016 and the competition allowed it to benchmark its herd and also gain valuable data on how its animals compare against other herds which aids with further herd improvement.
Winning team
The college's winning team, which consisted of three AI-bred late March 2021-drop calves, finished on 234.675 points, to be 5.207 points clear of second place.
The mid-November weaned calves were sired by Charolais sire, Lt Vista and out of Angus cows bred by the College from a number of different bloodlines.
The team also ranked first for feedlot performance with a score of 75.728 points, fourth for MSA performance with 59.341 points and 40th for processing performance with 104.606 points.
The team had an average daily gain of 2.08 kilograms for the heifer, 2.16kg and 2.53kg for steers and dressing percentages of 49.90 per cent, 52.75pc and 52.07pc to register profits from the feedlot of $186, $229.22 and $342.06.
When it came to the processing and MSA side, the heifer had a fat depth of 14mm, a hot scored carcase weight of 256.50kg, a 70 square centimetre eye muscle area and an MSA index of 61.36.
The two steers had HSCW of 278.50kg and 302kg, with 5mm and 10mm fat while their EMAs were 62cm2 and 71cm2 and their MSA indexes were 63.53 and 65.
The team had an average intake weight of 362.7kg, while it averaged 540.7kg out of the feedlot.
The college's beef herd is made up of 270 Angus breeders, which includes 75 maiden heifers and each year they do two rounds of AI on all the breeders before they are backed up with sweeper bulls.
Mr Millichamp said the three animals in the winning team had been bred in the college's terminal breeding program in which it joins 90 breeders to European breed bulls.
"The purpose of our terminal herd is to value-add to our lower fertility and poorer phenotype breeders," Mr Millichamp said.
"In the terminal program we use Limousin, Charolais and Simmental bulls with the aim of capturing as much hybrid vigour as possible and the calves from this program are all sold through the Boyanup saleyards.
"By running the terminal breeding program alongside our self-replacing Angus herd it allows us to show other breeds to the students and helps generate the conversations around the benefits different breeds can bring to a breeding herd.
"It also helps showcase the benefits of crossbreeding and hybrid vigour to the students."
Mitchell strength
After entering the competition since its inception, Wayne and Evonne Mitchell, Mountain Valley Livestock, Albany, recorded their first top five placing this year when they finished in second place overall.
The Mitchells' team, which was made up of an April-drop Charolais-Shorthorn-Angus heifer and two Angus-Droughtmaster steers, finished on 232.468 points.
Along with finishing second overall, the team finished second in the feedlot section on 69.126 points, 36th for processing performance on 106.455 points and 29th for MSA grading on 56.888 points.
Their ADGs were 1.72kg, 2.53kg and 2.426kg with DPs of 51.79pc, 51.19pc and 50.92pc to register profits of $147.85, $289.38 and $254.02.
When it came to the processing and MSA side of the competition, all three animals had a fat depth of 10mm.
The heifer had a HSCW of 246kg, an EMA of 68cm2 and an MSA index of 61.47 while the steers came in with HSCWs of 300kg and 277kg, EMAs of 68cm2 and 67cm2 along with MSA indexes of 60.83 and 59.74.
The team had an average intake weight of 358.3kg, while it averaged 535kg out of the feedlot.
The heifer calf was sired by a Liberty Charolais-Shorthorn composite bull and out of an Angus female carrying Lawsons Angus bloodlines while the steers were sired by a Lawsons Angus bull and out of Droughtmaster heifers purchased from the Sounness family, Merryup stud, Mt Barker.
- This article will feature in ACM's special Carcase Merit print publication in July.