Selection for meat quality within pure bred lines in swine - a study

Title of the paper: Selection for meat quality within pure bred lines in sw ine - a study The main criticism of the operators at the present final products concern t he variance in valuable cuts and meat quality traits and the absence of any favourable attributes. The paper reviews traits which can be used to deter mine pig meat quality in terms of methods, genetic parameters, economic imp ortance and selection response (index, QTL). Heritability estimates of meat quality traits from the literature and own analyses show low or moderate v alues. In halothane negative populations heritabilities are diminished whic h is also true for the correlations between meat quality and carcass traits . The relationship among intramuscular fat and sensoric attributes is in ge neral low so the role of intramuscular fat for sensoric aspects should not be overestimated. The economic values of meat quality depend on the population level and the monetary evaluation. Due to the optimum values for most quality traits the relationship between population mean and valuation is nonlinear. Using diff erent hypothetical payment system the economic value for IMF is calculated. The results show that only in the situation where the population mean is c lose to the optimum of 2.5 % a high economic value for IMF can be justified . Finally improving meat quality by selection index and QTL-information is discussed. The future selection strategy should focus on halothan negative lines (using MHS-information) due to the minimization of meat failures and reduction of variance in carcass and meat quality traits. At present the in clusion of further traits (e.g. intramuscular fat) is not indicated. Requir ements for special market segments can performed using complementary levels of different breeds.