MateSel

*** Update August 2024: New MateSel version 8.3.17.0 almost ready for beta release. Features include Genomic Mate Selection, and Shared Grouping under Mixed Mating Groups. More information on the download page.
*** Update July 2024: New MateSel version 8.2.16.0 released. Release notes are available on the download page.

MateSel is a software package used to drive your breeding program. It makes selection and mating decisions while balancing genetic gain and diversity, but with deviations according to other technical and logistical constraints as specified by the user.

MateSel is used world-wide by top breeding organisations across the key animal industries including: Dairy, Beef, Pigs, Meat Sheep, Wool Sheep, Broilers, Eggs, Turkeys, Atlantic Salmon, Pacific Salmon, Rainbow Trout, and Shrimp. MateSel is also used in plants including: Trees, Canola, Chickpeas, and Beans.

Many technical developments made for specific industries have proved useful across industries – so you can benefit from a wide range of ideas. While balancing genetic gain and diversity (Optimal Contributions Selection), you can simultaneously:

Manage genetic defects and gene edits
Manage trait distributions, including Tactical Desired Gains
Target creation of different categories of seedstock for sale according to the needs of different categories of customer
Handle the use of reproductive technologies
Impose a wide range of constraints on animal movement, numbers of matings, patterns of mating, and others
Use genomic information for mating decisions as well as for selection.

You are in control. You guide MateSel to a solution that you adopt, using an interactive graphical interface. If you don’t like what you see then you can "change the goalposts" and MateSel finds a solution for this new direction. In the end, you make the decisions, not the program. But MateSel does all the hard stuff. MateSel is also used in many organisations as a research tool, typically to explore different strategy options for implementing breeding programs. Options can be compared graphically on-screen to aid decisions on strategy.

Some comments from users...

MateSel resulted in a predicted 37.0% improvement in economic index in the progeny, with a 37.2% reduction in population inbreeding.

This totally changed my plant breeding world, and also my plant breeding methodology.

This is the glue that holds our breeding programs together!

The Aha moment with breeding values is using MateSel and predicting what the next generation is going to be doing ... and seeing that prediction actually come to fruition.

MateSel took the stress out of the joining decisions.

Our clients were quite impressed with the program. From conversations with colleagues in commercial breeding programs, it seems to me that MateSel is fast becoming the industry standard.

Below is the first video in a series we will be progressively releasing on various MateSel topics. We expect to have 20-30 videos in this series so be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get notifications about new videos.