South Anatolian Red (SAR) cattle are well adapted to the arid, hot and harsh conditions of the region and have the highest milk yield among the local breeds in Turkey. The purpose of this study was to determine the main productive characteristics, such as viability, reproduction and milk production, of F1, B1 and F1XB1 crossbred genotype groups from Simmental x SAR crossbreeding. A t test was used for 2 group comparisons. In cases of insufficient numbers of variants in the groups Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests were used where appropriate. There was no difficulty during birth in any of the crossbred groups. Viability rates for males were 100% in the B1 and 97.3% in the F1xB1 crossbred groups and 92.3% in the B1 and 94.6% in the F1xB1 groups for females. The average milk yields of the F1 and B1 genotype groups were similar to those of SAR. However, there were sizeable variations in the genotype groups for milk production, indicating that selection for milk yield is highly promising. In conclusion the crossbreeding programme would be beneficial for viability and possibly for milk production.

South Anatolian Red (SAR) cattle are well adapted to the arid, hot and harsh conditions of the region and have the highest milk yield among the local breeds in Turkey. The purpose of this study was to determine the main productive characteristics, such as viability, reproduction and milk production, of F1, B1 and F1XB1 crossbred genotype groups from Simmental x SAR crossbreeding. A t test was used for 2 group comparisons. In cases of insufficient numbers of variants in the groups Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests were used where appropriate. There was no difficulty during birth in any of the crossbred groups. Viability rates for males were 100% in the B1 and 97.3% in the F1xB1 crossbred groups and 92.3% in the B1 and 94.6% in the F1xB1 groups for females. The average milk yields of the F1 and B1 genotype groups were similar to those of SAR. However, there were sizeable variations in the genotype groups for milk production, indicating that selection for milk yield is highly promising. In conclusion the crossbreeding programme would be beneficial for viability and possibly for milk production.