Carcass and price traits of 72,969 Hanwoo cows, bulls and steers aged 16 to 80 months at slaughter collected from 2002 to 2013 at 75 beef packing plants in Korea were analyzed to determine heritability, correlation and breeding value using the Multi-Trait restricted maximum likelihood (REML) animal model procedure. The traits included carcass measurements, scores and grades at 24 h postmortem and bid prices at auction. Relatively high heritability was found for maturity (0.41±0.031), while moderate heritability estimates were obtained for backfat thickness (0.20±0.018), longissimus muscle (LM) area (0.23±0.020), carcass weight (0.28±0.019), yield index (0.20±0.018), yield grade (0.16±0.017), marbling (0.28±0.021), texture (0.14±0.016), quality grade (0.26±0.016) and price/kg (0.24±0.025). Relatively low heritability estimates were observed for meat color (0.06±0.013) and fat color (0.06±0.012). Heritability estimates for most traits were lower than those in the literature. Genetic correlations of carcass measurements with characteristic scores or quality grade of carcass ranged from −0.27 to +0.21. Genetic correlations of yield grade with backfat thickness, LM area and carcass weight were 0.91, −0.43, and −0.09, respectively. Genetic correlations of quality grade with scores of marbling, meat color, fat color and texture were −0.99, 0.48, 0.47, and 0.98, respectively. Genetic correlations of price/kg with LM area, carcass weight, marbling, meat color, texture and maturity were 0.57, 0.64, 0.76, −0.41, −0.79, and −0.42, respectively. Genetic correlations of carcass price with LM area, carcass weight, marbling and texture were 0.61, 0.57, 0.64, and −0.73, respectively, with standard errors ranging from ±0.047 to ±0.058. The mean carcass weight breeding values increased by more than 8 kg, whereas the mean marbling scores decreased by approximately 0.2 from 2000 through 2009. Overall, the results suggest that genetic improvement of productivity and carcass quality could be obtained under the national scale breeding scheme of Korea for Hanwoo and that continuous efforts to improve the breeding scheme should be made to increase genetic progress.

The present study was performed to study the genetic relationship of productive life with production and type traits of Korean Holsteins at first three lactations. The data for the analysis from 56,054, 28,997, and 11,816 animals of first, second and third parity cows which were born from 2006 to 2011 were collected by Dairy Cattle Improvement Center, National Agricultural Co-operative Federation. Milk, protein and fat yields adjusted for 305 days and average somatic cell score considered as production traits and analyzed type traits were stature, strength, body depth, dairy form, rump angle, rump width, rear leg side view, foot angle, front attachment placement, rear attachment height, rear attachment width, udder cleft, udder depth, front teat placement and front teat length. A multi trait genetic analysis was performed using Wombat program with restricted maximum likelihood animal model composed of fixed effect of birth year, farm and the random effect of animal and random residual effect according to the traits. Heritability estimates of productive life were between 0.06 and 0.13. Genetic and phenotypic correlations between production and productive life traits ranged from 0.35 to 0.04 for milk, 0.16 to 0.05 for protein and 0.18 to 0.02 f 15-0034 (2nd) 150520 or fat. Somatic cells score showed a negative genetic and phenotypic correlation with productive life and also udder type traits, indicating that the selection for higher udder traits will likely to improve resistance to mastitis and persistence in the herd. Among all dairy form type traits, udder characters such as udder cleft showed a significant relationship with productive life. However, a specific change of heritabilities or correlations were not observed with the change of parity. Moreover, further studies are needed to further confirm the significance of the above traits and the effect of parity on above relationships in order to minimize both voluntary and involuntary culling rates while improving herd health and maintaining high yielding dairy cows.

: This study presents the estimates of heritabilities of body measurement traits and carcass traits, and genetic and phenotypic correlations of those traits for crossbred pigs in Korea. Body and ultrasound (A mode: Piglog 105) measurements in 221 pigs including body weight, length, height and width, three back fat thickness at the points of 4th, 14th rib and chine bone, eye muscle area and lean meat percent were collected at the ages of 70, 145 and 180 days and then slaughtered to measure carcass weight, back fat, belly, collar butt, spare rib, picnic shoulder, hind leg, loin, tenderloin, lean meat yield and intramuscular rough fat content in loin. Genetic analysis was done using a multi-trait animal model. Heritabilties of the body measurements were ranged from 0.331 to 0.559 and three measurements of back fat thickness were also high as range varying from 0.402 to 0.475 for the ages of 145 and 180 days. However, eye muscle area was moderate (0.296) at the age of 180 days. Heritabilities of retail cut yields were also high as ranged from 0.387 to 0.474 and of IMF content in loin was 0.499. Heritabilities of the cut percent traits were ranged from 0.249 to 0.488. Important positive genetic and phenotypic correlations were noted for all carcass yield traits (0.298 to 0.875 and 0.432 to 0.922, respectively). IMF showed low negative genetic correlations with carcass yield traits, such as carcass weight, picnic shoulder, hind leg, loin, tenderloin and lean meat yield whereas low positive genetic correlations with back fat, belly, collar butt and spare rib. Loin, tenderloin and lean meat percent showed negative genetic correlations with carcass weight, back fat thickness, collar butt, spare rib and picnic shoulder percent. The four body measurements at the ages of 70, 145 and 180 days had positive genetic correlations with belly, shoulder butt, spare rib, picnic shoulder and hind leg percent, but negative genetic correlations were shown with loin and tenderloin percent except body measurements at 70 days. The results suggest that carcass yield are negatively correlated with intramuscular fat content, which is a major factor deciding pork quality and the yield of loin and tenderloin are not increased as much as increase in body size. However, the proportions of belly and collar butt are increased with the body size. In conclusion, selection strategy should be designed according to the preference on composition of carcass in each country.

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