[Article in The Land, May 2026]
A passion for measuring cattle performance has landed veterinarian Dr Joe Grose his dream job: rethinking the Wagyu breed.
Trading as 3D Genetics, Pukawidgi at Bukkulla via Inverell, the seedstock enterprise runs on granite country with an average annual rainfall of 700mm. This year there has been less than 90mm and the operation is feeding intensively.
Despite the drought, 3D Genetics will artificially inseminate 2000 Wagyu Fullblood cows using no less than 50 sires.
Progeny will be measured in detail throughout their lives, as have previous generations for more than two decades.
At the data science level, Dr Grose employs a full-time quantitative geneticist, and a software engineer writing code.
They analyse multiple traits to achieve fit-for-purpose outcomes, similar to the way dairy, pork and chicken industries grow their production and maximise profit.
An immediate short-term goal of the Wagyu program is to produce an 8-10 per cent increase in loin cut yield.
It is here, at a wholesale level, that 42pc of the carcase value resides.
Dr Grose and his small team are doing this through multi-trait selection, including those for eye muscle area feed efficiency, growth and marbling.
The cattle that don’t efficiently turn feed into kilograms of beef are culled.
Breeding in this space requires careful consideration.
“The Wagyu breed is derived from a very small genetic pool,” Dr Grose said.
“At the time of Fullblood exports from Japan in the mid 1990s, the effective population of the Japanese Black breed was just 17 in the national herd.”
The total number of foundation individuals imported was just 238 head. Today in Australia there are more than 220,000 Wagyu and their crossbred cattle on feed.
To avoid costly mistakes mate selection software is used to maximise genetic gain while controlling inbreeding.
“I have three sons who are keen to be involved in the business, and I want a future for them,” Dr Grose said.
The way the program works, Pukawidgi is a “phenotype factory”.
Indeed, Dr Grose would rather castrate a promising bull from a new sire line to feed him out and observe his carcase traits, rather than sell him as a stud animal.
Working with Vytelle for more than 13 years, the small team manage trial mobs by automatically recording feed consumption at the bunk and resultant weight gain. That data allows software to analyse feed efficiency.
Commercial clients over a big swathe of country into central Queensland also record their data and feed the algorithm that is building a new approach to breeding cattle.
The end result will involve complexity.
“There’s not much to love about the Wagyu,” Dr Grose said. “Milk is a major weakness. We know that the maternal effect on weaning weights relies on the quality and volume of milk, and also a behavioural component of the mother cow.”
Wagyu are born smaller than Angus and are notoriously slow growing, so take longer to finish on feed. However, careful selection and informed joining can bend that curve, improving the breed.
“We want to increase the birthweight,” Dr Grose said.
“But we don’t want to increase dystocia, or calving difficulties.”
To achieve this, the internal architecture of a heifer’s pelvis is measured, multiplying width by height, adding that data to the code, to beef up predictable outcomes.
“Pelvic area plus the weight of a yearling heifer immediately prior to joining gives us a good prediction of the maximum birth weight that can occur without calving difficulty,” Dr Grose said.
“And that trait is moderately to highly heritable.
“We know that growth traits are highly correlated, so birthweight, weaning weight, yearling weight and carcase weights are passed on genetically.
“At the same time, we don’t want to ignore calving ease. To remain commercially relevant in the vast paddocks of central Queensland, Wagyu must be able to calve unassisted.”
Helping to fill in the data gaps are commercial clients who work with 350 bulls sent out on a three-year working lease so progeny can be followed through their lifecycle, from birth to slaughter
Beyond marbling is Dr Grose’s desire to place fat in the right place.
“When we pull the lever for feed efficiency, we don’t want to lose the trait for marbling,” he said.
“Selecting just on feed efficiency reduces all fat depots, including marbling, because fat is energetically costly to lay down.”
Trimmed fat, from subcutaneous and seam depots, brings $2/kg whereas fat laid down as marbling sells for 50 times that price.
“Moving fat to the right place delivers real profit,” he said.
To assist in the analysis, 3D Genetics is using a near-infrared light device (NIR) in conjunction with Meat Imaging Japan (MIJ), to measure mono-unsaturated fatty acids like Oleic acid, the low-melting point fat, which equates to eating quality.
“The trait is highly heritable, above 70pc,” Dr Grose said.
The old laboratory test used to cost $150 to $200, but with NIR it can now be done in 20 seconds, in the abattoir chiller, at a fraction of the old price.
In the next five months the team will analyse 2000 samples from F1, Purebred and Fullblood cattle to compare the NIR analysis with laboratory fat analysis.
“By the end of the year we will have a commercial tool available for all beef producers,” he said.
A foray into sexed semen, to produce more steer calves at higher value, took Dr Grose down a rabbit hole in the search of semen that would survive the freeze and thaw process of Artificial Insemination. Interestingly, the selection for suitable semen from younger yearling bulls, resulted in bull calves with increased scrotal circumference.
Today, a 3D Fullblood Wagyu bull looks different. There is more hindquarter and overall muscularity as a result of selecting for increased rib eye area.
There is increased feed efficiency with the aim to reduce days at the bunk, increasing profit while reducing methane emissions.
The next phase of 3D research will be on selecting for reduced methane emissions, using data from C-Lock GreenFeed sniffers in the pen and paddock.
“Producers shouldn’t be scared of methane,” Dr Grose said.
“Reducing methane emissions intensity goes hand in hand with profit.
“Fast-growing animals that are feed efficient, and that are harvested young, produce less methane. It’s a win-win.”