More specifically, with a single sample, producers receive an Igenity profile that parent-verifies the animal to a sire, and includes genetic analyses for tenderness and other carcass traits such as carcass weight and lean yield, as well as confirmation of homozygous black or red carrier genotype. Simultaneously, producers can also choose to have their animals tested for persistent infection with bovine viral diarrhea.

When all is said and done, using a scoring system based on genotypic results, along with phenotypic performance data provided by producers, Igenity provides in-herd EPDs, scores and genetic evaluation for each profile.

“When used with other tools available in quantitative genetics, it gives us a better estimate of the worth of an animal, at a much earlier age,” Bauck says.

So, how do you choose tests and the companies offering them? Visit with them; ask them to tell you specifically what their diagnostics test for. Ask for validation. You can find reviews of tests submitted for third-party validation to the National Beef Cattle Genetic Evaluation Consortium at www.ansci.cornell.edu/nbcec.

For that matter, just getting reacquainted with the first geneticist, Gregor Mendel, and basic genomics is a great first step. As Holm notes, “People still refer to a marbling gene or a tenderness gene. Many still don't understand that hundreds of genes affect each trait.”

All these companies agree the potential of genomics is just starting to be realized.

“In a practical-minded industry like ours, there's been some disappointment at the speed of progress,” Gunter says. “But the rate of progress has been dramatic in terms of the production/development life cycle of other tools, such as pharmaceutical products, where the cycle can run 15-20 years. We're only 8-10 years into that cycle.”

You have a chromosome — actually you have 23 pairs of chromosomes while cattle have 30 pairs — that exist within the nucleus of a single cell. Each chromosome is filled with DNA — long, thread-like structures comprised of smaller molecules made up of nucleotides. These nucleotides are comprised of a sugar and phosphate molecule, along with one of four bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) or guanine (G).

Next, along stretches of DNA, you find genes — 30,000-40,000 of them in humans — where the particular combination and arrangement of nucleotides creates a sort of code that describes a particular type of protein. These proteins, in turn, tell the cells what they will do and what they will become.

For each pair of chromosomes inherited, half from your mom, the other from your dad. Thus, if you know which genes — or more importantly, which specific version of each gene (allele) — occur on which chromosome, where and how frequently in the population, you can use heredity to transmit the genes you want more of the time.

Consider the simple mode of inheritance for coat color. A black Limousin bull, for instance, can carry both an allele for red and one for black. Black is dominant and red is recessive, so a Limousin calf can be red only if it inherits an allele for red from both its dam and sire. Since black is dominant, we know heterozygotes — those carrying only one allele for black — will be just as black as homozygotes, which carry both alleles for black color.

Obviously, that doesn't make much difference to us once the calf is on the ground, but if we knew the locations on the chromosome of the genes for red and black — like we do now — and could test our black bull for the existence of those genes, we would know before we ever bred him whether he was homozygous or heterozygous for the trait.

In turn, we can use that information to more effectively select for one expression of the trait or the other. It works the same way with horns and polledness, with horns being the recessive gene.

Certainly, the expressions of quantitative traits like tenderness and feed efficiency, which depend upon the interaction of multiple genes, are tougher nuts to crack, but the concept is the same.