As he prepared for his first reduction sale for Emu Banks Holsteins, Bryan Dickson was celebrating more ABV success with Superpower receiving his first daughter-proven breeding value and shooting straight to the top as the number one Australian-standing daughter-proven Holstein.
Marketed by Genetics Australia, Emu Banks Superpower is expected to live up to his name and deliver extremely profitable and robust cows with tremendous production and strength traits.
For Bryan and his wife Jo, it’s another in a long line of successes — including Christmas, which topped the bull rankings seven years ago.
Superpower came in number three in the April Australian Breeding Values — following imports from Canada and the United States — but he’s the number one daughter-proven Holstein bull standing in Australia.
His success is especially sweet for the Dickson family.
“He only became proven in April and he’s from a home-bred family, not a family we bought in,” Bryan said.
Superpower’s pedigree stems back to a Planet cow about eight lactations ago and continued with an excellent Roumare daughter.
“Genetics Australia progeny tested him and he came to the top and now his daughters don’t have many faults; they’re consistently good,” Bryan said.
Superpower graduated to the Genetics Australia proven daughter team after the April 2022 ABV release with an impressive 454 BPI and 256 ASI, easily placing him into the top one per cent of bulls available and the highest new Australian bull.
Superpower is A22, an impressive +0.56 per cent for Protein and +0.27 per cent for Fat.
Genetics Australia’s western Victorian regional sales manager Rodney Brooks says it’s not just production where he excels; he is equally as impressive for health traits.
“His 105 for Mastitis Resistance, 110 for Daughter Fertility and 102 for Calving Ease with a -4 for Gestation Length make him a Total Performance Sire and will ensure he is included in many breeding programs,” Rodney said.
Semen is available as sexed or conventional and Superpower is set to be one of Australia’s most popular bulls in 2022.
The herd’s ongoing success augered well for Emu Banks Holsteins’ first reduction sale when about 250 head went under the hammer at Mortlake on June 1.
“I’m getting smaller,” Bryan said.
“I’m sick of milking 1000 cows. I’m not going to retire but I’m going from 1000 down to 700. For starters, milking will be an hour faster.
“When you’re 20, you want to grow and grow so I’ve lived my life for 30 years thinking bigger is better.
“You make more money with 1000 cows but money isn’t everything; I’m not driven as much as I used to be.”
Following a new philosophy that there are “more things in life than staying at home”, Bryan has accompanied his family to the Royal Sydney Show to watch them achieve multiple successes and recently went to Pakistan with Genetics Australia’s export manager Rob Derksen.
“Pakistan was mind-blowing and I want to do more of that,” he said.
“I’d been to America in 2013 but that was more of a study tour and this was more about sales of semen for Genetics Australia.
“It worked really well. A lot of the farmers wanted to talk to another farmer.”
Bryan, who sells about 20 registered genomic Holstein bulls per year, has sold bulls to Genetics Australia since 2007, usually giving the company first choice of bulls.
Emu Banks has another good bull on the way. He’s only about five months old, awaiting genomics and not yet in AI, but Bryan is upbeat about his prospects.
“He’ll come into the system next year as a genomic bull. He’s got to be proven, but he has the potential to be better than Superpower.”
Bryan plans another sale later in the year for spring-calving cows. All cows are registered and genomically tested.
“I test all my calves as soon as they’re born and I believe that genomics gets it right most of the times,” he said.
“The ones that are clearly the best genomics are clearly the best genetics.”