Alison Van Eenennaam (University of California, Davis): SNP chips are able to predict genetic merit because, basically, they have been trained. What I mean by that is, breed associations have large populations of animals that have observations on traits of interest and also have been genotyped. That enables the breed association to develop what are called prediction equations, where they've basically estimated the effect of each of the genotyped SNPs throughout the genome for that particular breed. So, when a producer submits an animal that they don't have any information on, they can take that DNA information and make a prediction as to the genetic merit of that animal.
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