It's sire selection time on dairy farms across the country, with Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme's spring release of Australian Breeding Values now available to producers make decisions about the sires to use over their herds in the coming months.

The information provided in ABVs allows farmers to match bulls to their individual breeding objective.

Michelle Axford from ADHIS says genetic gain is "permanent and compounding", making sire selection an important contribution to dairy business profitability.

"The best gains are made by consistently focussing on a few traits that you've identified as being most important to your dairy business," she said.

Important traits include protein and fat production relative to body weight, survival, milking speed, temperament, cell count and fertility.

"If these traits are important to your business you can simplify the bull selection by comparing the Australian Profit Ranking (APR) of bulls," Ms Axford said.

"It is a single figure that reflects a bull's ABVs for all these traits."

* A list of ABVs is available at www.adhis.com.au