Come to grips with crossbreeding terms : focus on...

The beef cattle industry is increasingly turning to crossbreeding as a tool for improving productivity through heterosis and combining traits from different breeds to match cattle to varying environments and markets. Crossbreeding is the mating of different breeds of animals of the same species. The main advantage of crossbreeding is so-called hybrid vigour or heterosis. Heterosis is a phenomenon that causes crossbred individuals to have increased levels of performance above the average performance of their purebred parents. Crossbreeding can also increase production levels by being complementary. Complementary crossbreeding is when the strong points of one breed complements the weak points of another. This allows the breeder to combine the desirable characteristics of two or more breeds to achieve a more desirable animal.