Beef and Lamb New Zealand says the sheep breeding programme SIL-ACE is starting to make a difference.
It assesses the genetic performance of ewes and rams, so breeders can use the information to improve the liveweight gains and fleece quality.
Beef and Lamb geneticist Dr Mark Young says it's the only programme of its type in the world, and is bringing sheep breeding up to speed with dairy and beef cattle schemes.
He says 700 farmers are in the SIL-ACE programme which uses a computer based large scale statistical approach to compare a large number of flocks.
Dr Young says some information is now being released on the internet, such as sire leader lists, which detail best sires in the country for different traits.
He says there are also tools a ram buyer can use by making selections based on which traits they want to improve in their ewe flock or which individual animals they may want to add to their breeding programme.
Dr Young says they're now looking at how they can integrate DNA information into the breeding system.
