Industry & Investment NSW (I&I NSW) Director-General, Dr Richard Sheldrake, today congratulated Orange Agricultural Institute livestock researcher, Steve Semple, on his win last week in the ABC TV New Inventors program.

The Pedigree MatchMaker system of matching ewes to lambs developed in Orange by Mr Semple and his colleagues from the Cooperative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation (Sheep CRC) was selected as the best invention on last weeks New Inventors.

Dr Sheldrake said Mr Semple is now in the running to be selected for the New Inventors grand final in November and be named as the programs inventor of the year.

"It is a great honour for the efforts of Mr Semple and the Sheep CRC to be publicly recognised in this way," Dr Sheldrake said.

"The New Inventors judges were impressed with the way Pedigree MatchMaker combined animal science with computer science to develop a well designed, practical and original solution to the problem of matching lambs with their mothers."

Until now, the only way for sheep breeders to accurately match dams and their lambs was by spending time in the paddock watching lambs mothering up and manually recording the ID of each ewe and lamb combination.

Pedigree MatchMaker automates the process by using a gateway with a data reader that electronically tagged sheep must pass through to reach water, to record the order ewes and lambs go through the gate.

Over time, the collected data can match lambs with their dams with a high degree of accuracy using Pedigree MatchMaker software.

"Pedigree MatchMaker saves considerable time and adds substantially to the value of individual animal information," Dr Sheldrake said.

"Having access to dam pedigree improves the reliability of information used to predict breeding values, allows accurate genetic comparison between animals over time and provides genetic links between flocks to make across-flock evaluation possible.

"Trials have shown that Pedigree MatchMaker improves selection accuracy in breeding flocks by up to 21%."

Media contact: Tom Braz 02 6391 3579, 0428 256 596