Genetic variation of loin and ham quality in Finnish Landrace and Large White pigs

Abstract

Selection potential for meat quality of economically important loin (longissimus) and ham muscles (adductor, semimembranosus, biceps femoris) has been assessed. Ultimate pH (pH u ), meat colour (lightness, redness and yellowness), drip loss and two visually scored colour traits were recorded from 483 Finnish Landrace and 494 Finnish Large White station test pigs in a half-sib design. A univariate restricted maximum likelihood procedure was used to estimate variance components. The statistical model contained age at beginning of test, sex and time lapse from slaughter to dissection as fixed effects and slaughter batch, common environment of littermates and additive genetic effect of the animal as random effects. The average pH u values in adductor and semispinalis were between 5.6 and 6.1. The pH u were on average 5.4 and 5.5 in longissimus and semimembranosus respectively, with the latter two being lower than optimum values of 5.6 to 5.9. Lightness for semimembranosus turned to be clearly lighter (62) than for other muscles. Lightness for longissimus (56) was slightly lighter than optimum (from 48 to 54). The heritability varied from zero to 0.45 for pH u , from 0.02 to 0.34 for lightness, from 0.17 to 0.56 for redness, from zero to 0.28 for yellowness and from 0.05 to 0.16 for drip loss. Heritability for redness values was considerably higher than heritability for other meat quality traits. The heritability of quality traits spoke for possibilities for genetic improvement of meat quality. Genetic correlations between quality traits (pH u and lightness) and average daily gain varied strongly among breeds and muscles. Genetic correlations between meat-% and pH u were in most cases high and unfavourable (rg from -0.36 to -0.68 except in longissimus, where it was 0.11). Genetic correlations between meat-% and lightness were unfavourable in Finnish Large White (from 0.47 to 0.92) but in Finnish Landrace estimates varied among muscles (from -0.40 to 0.47). Due to these results, the ham quality (pH u and lightness for semimembranosus) was included in the selection criteria for pork quality in the Finnish pig improvement programme.

Differentiation of chill‐stored and frozen pork necks using electronic nose with ultra‐fast gas chromatography

“…Physicochemical properties of pork neck slices chill‐stored for 1, 4, and 7 days and frozen‐stored for 5 months are presented in Table . The results showed that pH, L* , a* , and b* values were in accordance with previous study (Sevon‐Aimonen, Honkavaara, Maki‐Tanila, & Puonti, ), showing that the dark meat was characterized by a high value of pH and color a* , low value of L* and b* when compared with light meat. The wide variation of pH, L* , a* , and b* values obtained in the current study were typical for dark muscles, as reported by Sevon‐Aimonen et al ().…”

“…Sevon-Aimonen, Honkavaara,Maki-Tanila, & Puonti, 2007), showing that the dark meat was characterized by a high value of pH and color a*, low value of L* and b* when compared with light meat. The wide variation of pH, L*, a*, and b* values obtained in the current study were typical for dark muscles, as reported bySevon-Aimonen et al (2007). Statistical analysis showed that there was no significant differences in pH, L*, a*, and b* between pork neck samples with different storage time (p > .05).…”

Technological quality and composition of the M. semimembranosus and M. longissimus dorsi from Large White and Landrace Pigs

“…The technological quality attributes of meat include: pH value, color, texture, water-holding capacity (WHC) and chemical composition (Rosenvold and Andersen 2003, Olsson and Pickova 2005, Sevón-Aimonen et al 2007. These parameters are influenced by multiple interacting factors including breed, genetics, feeding, pre-slaughter treatment and stunning, slaughter method, chilling and storage conditions, as reviewed by Rosenvold and Andersen (2003).…”

“…Incidence of inferior muscle quality, especially with PSE and RSE defects, has an economic impact in the pork industry (Kauffman et al 1992, Joo et al 2000a, O'Neill et al 2003, Huff-Lonergan and Lonergan 2005, Sevón-Aimonen et al 2007. For this reason, evaluation of technological quality of pork represents an important step in meat production and processing.…”

“…In international practice the evaluation of pork quality is based on very different parameters and criteria. The most popular parameters, which enable identification of defective meat, include the pH value, measured in the muscle tissue 30-60 minutes (pre-rigor state) and 24 hours post-mortem (post-rigor state), meat colour (reflectance -lightness -CIEL* value) and WHC (numerous analytical methodologies: filter paper press, filter paper, bag, tray, EZ-DripLoss, absorption or centrifugation methods or determination of cooking loss), measured 24 hours postmortem (Bendall and Swatland 1988, Honikel 1998, 1999, Sevón-Aimonen et al 2007. Moreover, other parameters like: electrical conductivity (Joo et al 2000a, Lee et al 2000 or impedance (Swatland 1995) help to identify defects in pork meat quality (Bendall andSwatland 1988, Honikel 1999).…”