by Lilly Platts
The Carcass Merit Program has been helping SimGenetics producers prove their up-and-coming sires for 28 years, while also adding beneficial data to the genetic evaluation.
he American Simmental Association’s Carcass Merit Program (CMP) was founded under the leadership of past ASA Executive Vice President Jerry Lipsey in 1997. The first matings through the program took place at the Sheek Ranch, Cabool, Missouri, and the program has been growing ever since. By mating top young sires in the breed to commercial females, the CMP has been yielding valuable carcass data for almost three decades. The CMP builds EPD accuracy, and assists in the early screening for young bulls in real-world commercial settings. While CMP’s ultimate focus is carcass traits, it also contributes calving ease scores, and birth, weaning, and yearling weights, which is beneficial to all animals in the International Genetic Solutions (IGS) evaluation. In 2024, ASA expanded CMP to a second testing avenue, which will bring in other research data and allow even more sires to be tested annually.
CMP Coordinator, Susan Russell, owns and operates Reflected R Ranch near Sugar City, Colorado, alongside her husband, Curt. Russell served on the ASA Board of Trustees, and supported the Association as a SimSpecialist before stepping into her current role with the CMP. Russell works with seedstock producers looking to prove their promising young sires through the CMP, and also coordinates with commercial cow-calf cooperator herds.
Platts: How are bulls added to the CMP?
Russell: Owners may nominate one or more sires annually, or choose to participate selectively when they have raised or purchased an outstanding sire who would offer valuable data to their operation. Nominations are open to the ASA membership. The CMP is not a closed research project — the doors are open.
The first step for nominating a sire is simple: review the form on Simmental.org → Programs → CMP. Submit the completed form to
Bulls need to have phenotypic and genotypic merit, and at least a GGP100K test completed. Since a cooperator system is used in the traditional CMP avenue, bulls that rank in the top 10–20 percent in traits such as $API, $TI, Calving Ease, and Marbling are most desired. First preference is given to young sires, but older sires may be accepted. Likewise, SimGenetics is given preference, but sires registered with other International Genetic Solutions partner breeds may also be considered. Nominations are open year-round.
Once vetted and approved, the nominator provides and ships their sire’s semen to CMP’s storage tanks at Origen. After semen is used, a $2,000/sire nomination fee will be assessed through Herdbook. The fee may be split between bull partners, based on instructions. I find it exciting to read the sire class list each year. Typically these sires quickly become the up-and-coming bulls to watch.
How are cooperator herds sourced, and how can they benefit from the CMP?
CMP has cooperator or commercial test herds scattered in different environments and regions. Cooperators range from university research partners to young commercial cattle producers with off-ranch day jobs. Some have been loyal partners and others are newer participants. All manage and care for the livestock we entrust to them and feed our data-hungry system.
To be statistically relevant, a cooperator must have at least 100 cows to AI to CMP bulls. ASA provides semen from four to six premium CMP bulls to each cooperator to inseminate their designated cows.
Herd preferences, such as hide color or breed composition, are taken into consideration as bulls are assigned. Breeding is random mating. As one cooperator recently commented: “We’ve got another outstanding class of choices.”
Each cooperator records their data in a provided Herdbook account. They input their herd base and individual calf data at each step from birth through finish. ASA provides Tissue Sampling Units for their calf crop and shoulders genotyping expenses. Cooperators, who are required to harvest all male calves, secure individual animal-verified harvest records, which they then submit to ASA.
Harvest records are matched with the provided CMP sires and individual calf records. Those qualifying animals receive a payout from ASA. In August 2022, the ASA board increased the incentive to $200/head to compete with current cattle market prices and to better reflect the value of the data it receives from cooperator herds.
In addition to this attractive payout, cooperators benefit from top-tier bulls, free genetic evaluation of their herd, and the option to keep all heifer calves!
On Simmental.org → Programs → CMP there is also a cooperator herd summary sheet, or members may call me to inquire about becoming a CMP cooperator herd. We specifically need herds in the southern and eastern regions of the US.
How does the CMP set promising young sires up for success?
Bull owners commit their next generation of genetically influential young sires because CMP is an unbiased evaluation that delivers usable data. Although these elite young sires have GE-EPD, already boosted from genotyping, they are still unproven in the “real world.” Many have just been collected, with no proof of their future impact.
We have all purchased sires that had eye appeal and excelled on paper, but then we were disappointed when the first set of calves hit the ground. CMP offers that early screening, plus more. When testing a young sire, remember that the data bumps from records, ranging from calving assistance and birth to weaning and yearling data. All of these things boost the economically relevant EPD accuracy more quickly than a single-herd model. The record enhancement from the carcass data collected about 30 months later predicts end-product value. All this is fed into the genetic evaluation so it not only benefits the entire evaluation, but specifically aids the breeder/owner not just with testing results on the sire himself, but on all his progeny.
Cooperator herds harvest all male CMP progeny and have the option to keep replacement females, which provides ongoing data such as cow productivity on the maternal side.
Why is CMP testing still valuable in the age of GE?
While other harvest tests have been developed within the beef industry, and genomic testing has evolved to improve animal predictability, CMP remains relevant.
As our Association’s tagline reminds us, Simmental continues to provide “profit through science.” Data is our lifeblood. CMP has a directive to focus on gathering carcass information on the progeny of individual sires, but it also helps generate those difficult-to-collect metrics that are vital components in the powerful evaluation.
Yes, there are some private enterprises that might claim to have superior carcass metrics, but when you examine it closer you will see that they might promote a single metric, and they are relatively small in comparison to our biggest trump card — namely IGS — and the leverage, breadth, and validity of its collaborative data.
IGS has approximately 23.5 million animals in its genetic evaluation. While it grows daily, a recent breakdown of the IGS database shows 450,000 carcass records and 24,250 carcass records with genotype records attached. Of the 25 IGS breed partners, ASA has the largest subset. If you look at ASA’s database only, we have around 6.7 million records with 82,600 carcass records and 20,350 carcass records with genotype records attached.
While CMP doesn’t get credit for all the carcass records found in the IGS evaluation, it does add fuel to the engine that has genotypes on the sires of about 330,000 of those carcass records, along with genotypes on more than 20,000 of the dams. That fact gives IGS a huge advantage when it comes to leveraging the predictive value of genotyping technology.
ASA hasn’t sat on its laurels. In addition to the power of the world’s largest genetic evaluation, the CMP structure offers benefits to both the sire nominator and the test herds. With our newest CMP avenue, ASA has added data points that provide cutting-edge metrics desired by segments of the beef industry. These topics were covered at the 2023 and 2024 Fall Focus educational symposium, including the heart, lung, and liver scoring. ASA continues to research and offer more tools, including CMP, Cow Herd Roundup, and Calf Crop Genomics to enhance your operation, your Simmental community, and the larger industry.
Why do you personally participate in CMP?
Since 2016, my husband Curtis and I have had eight of our herdsires in CMP. Our business, Reflected R Ranch, is one of a couple dozen data-driven ASA members who consistently offer sires to CMP. We believe in the value of CMP to prove young sires on a larger scale than we can achieve within our small operation, and value testing them in various environments. We appreciate how it significantly builds EPD accuracy and gives us vital feedback to enhance our herd’s genetics. It creates the ultimate benefit of providing difficult-to-collect harvest data back to our 140-cow operation, as well as to ASA and the IGS evaluation.
Are there any new or interesting opportunities being explored for the CMP?
In 2024, ASA expanded CMP. The new opportunity enhances the original cooperator herd model so ASA has the ability to test even more sires annually, take sire nominations year-round, and gain new trait data desired by the industry. We anticipate the impact will be huge.
We welcomed a partnership with Simplot, a multifaceted firm with its livestock division based in Idaho. The ASA-Simplot option offers a “phenotypic pipeline” of conception through harvest.
While we value our traditional cooperator herds, not all nominated sires fit that template. Specifically, we now have a better channel to test top Simbrah and Fullblood bulls and to test more Simmental and percentage Simmental sires within the contract’s parameters.
This all-terminal pipeline allows for non-traditional breeding times, and the data stream will include novel metrics such as feedlot performance records, feedlot treatment records, feed intake, carcass data, and heart, lung, and liver scoring.
Both the conventional and expanded CMP options feed data into the IGS evaluation. ASA is excited to welcome Simplot, whose techs have already bred females from their inaugural class of CMP bulls.