Our breeding program is driven by the collection of data from structured field trials (often referred to as “progeny tests”) deployed in South Australia and Tasmania.

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Trials are deployed by industry collaborators under commercial conditions from ~2-3mm size, at different sites in both Tasmania and South Australia. Data is routinely collected by ASI on live counts (survival), condition, shape and growth and collected at different intervals throughout grow-out.

Where possible our trials contain replicate groups of oysters from each family produced by our annual spawning run. A typical trial will deploy 40 – 80 families and collect data from 800 – 1,500 individual oysters for body measurement traits, and 10,000 – 15,000 oysters for survival traits. On average ASI will deploy about four to six trials per year class.

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Family pedigree and trial data is securely stored and managed in a database platform created and maintained by CSIRO. Data is then readily accessible by a specialist team of quantitative geneticists who conduct statistical analyses to inform annual selection decisions, inbreeding management and predict genetic gains.

Our trial data and pedigree records permit the calculation of estimated breeding values, or EBVs (see our FAQ's page for more information on how EBV's work), which are the primary metric used by ASI to indicate the genetic merit of our families. EBVs are estimated for each trait as well as inbreeding values and are what we report in our Broodstock Catalogue.