Cattle breeders have also used Brahman (i.e. Zebu) bulls to upgrade herds of British breeds into standardised Brahman-cross types, which have subsequently been registered as breeds, such as the Droughtmaster, Braford and Brangus.

The geneticists and animal physiologists at Rockhampton, led successively by Drs. J. M. Rendel, H. G. Turner, and J. E. Vercoe, have successfully analysed the adaptive characters of cattle, such as heat tolerance, resistance to parasitic and other diseases, and low maintenance requirements, together with productive characters such as appetite (voluntary food intake) and growth rates. They have found that physiological attributes that are associated with adaptation to the tropics are often negatively correlated with productive characters. Therefore they have shown that when breeding cattle for a particular environment it is necessary to consider compromises in any selection program which seeks to include both adaptive and productive characteristics. [80]

In addition to producing the Belmont Red cattle, the importance of the research undertaken in Queensland is that it has yielded fundamental information on the physiology of adaptation and the ways in which important physiological characteristics can best be incorporated in breeding programs. This information is now being used by animal geneticists throughout the world.

While studies on beef cattle breeding were in progress at Rockhampton, parallel investigations were being undertaken by CSIRO with tropical dairy cattle at Badgery's Creek in New South Wales. Because earlier work had shown that Brahman cattle from Queensland were temperamentally unsuited to dairying, the Badgery's Creek program was based on crossing Jersey cattle (Bos taurus) with Red Sindhi and Sahiwal (Bos indicus) stock which were presented to Australia by the Government of Pakistan in 1952. As the cross-breeding program progressed under the leadership of Mr. R. H. Hayman, it became obvious that the progeny of Sindhi stock were inferior to Sahiwal crosses and therefore further selections were concentrated on the Sahiwals.

By selecting exclusively on characteristics such as milk and butterfat yield, heat tolerance, tick resistance and temperament, mating cross-bred generations within themselves, and progeny testing bulls, the project has resulted in a new type of tropical dairy cow, called the Australian Milking Zebu (AMZ). Although the opportunities for dairying in Australia's tropical north are limited, the AMZ has been used on the north coast of New South Wales, where it was shown to be at least equal in yield to European breeds and superior in terms of tick resistance. It has also been exported to Papua New Guinea and to some Asian countries.

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering