Invited Review: Crossbreeding in Dairy Cattle From a German Perspective of the Past and Today

Scheme of crossing breeds Danish Jersey, native East German Black and White, and Holstein-Friesian during the process of creating the Schwarzbuntes Milchrind der DDR (SMR) in East Germany (according to the concept by Schönmuth, 1963).

Genetic correlations of milk production traits in SMR (Fiedler et al., 1990) in comparison to pure SR (*) and crossing group SR by Jersey (#), and heritability coefficients (Droese et al., 1985) based on a large material from the contemporary East German crossing population. SMR = Schwarzbuntes Milchrind der DDR breed; SR = native Black and White cattle population in East Germany.

Schwarzbuntes Milchrind der DDR breed cow Orange, male ancestors William × Profit, lifetime from March 18, 1986 to July 9, 1998, 10 lactations completed, 3,185 d of use, life performance 75,323kg of milk, 5.51% fat (photograph by I. Rossen, Nordhackstedt, 1995).

Schwarzbuntes Milchrind der DDR breed cow Waltraud, male ancestors Waterloo × Wanja, lifetime from May 12, 1981 to March 21, 2000, 10 lactations completed, 4,245 d of use, life performance 106,782kg of milk, 4.73% fat, 3.42% protein, 8,702kg of fat + protein (photograph by R. Schuhmann, Dresden, 1995).

Breeding scenario for a population-wide point of view (100,000 cows) when considering the restrictions of the fulfillment of a fixed fat quota of 30,000kg and the replacements for purebred Holstein-Friesian (HF) and crossbred HF × BS (Brown Swiss) cows.