Quantifying meat and eating quality differences between major Australian pig genotypes

Differences between slaughter progeny groups, caused by slaughter progeny genotype, in meat and eating quality traits have been reported from national genetic evaluations in the United States, various trials in the United Kingdom, and through a range of product comparison tests in other EU countries. However, similar comparisons had not been conducted for progeny representing alternative sire breeds common in Australia. This has meant that Australian pig breeders had little knowledge of how slaughter progeny performance for meat and eating quality traits would be affected by sire genotypes, and commercial producers had little opportunity to exert an informed choice on the sires used to improve meat quality, even at the "breed" level. Thus, the first objective of this project was to quantify differences in meat and eating quality traits for the major terminal sire-line genotypes available to commercial producers. Following on from this, it is potentially desirable to implement strategies to improve meat and eating quality traits through breeding. This requires 1) identification of economically important traits that are heritable to define breeding goals, 2) estimation of genetic parameters, 3) implementation of genetic evaluation procedures, and 4) routine recording of data for predicting estimated breeding values. The limiting factor for genetic improvement in meat and eating quality traits lies with point 4), i.e., the cost and difficulty of obtaining data on individual animals.