A biopsy technique to predict quality in the live beef animal with emphasis on tenderness

摘要

Because tenderness is considered the most desired eatingcharacteristic in meat, more emphasis should be placed on thistrait in evaluating beef quality in breeding and selection programs.Both tenderness and marbling are highly heritable traits(Heritability = approximately 0.6), therefore much improvementcould be made through progeny testing of sires; however, this requiresconsiderable time and expense. This consideration, plusan increasing interest in feeding young beef bulls for market,led to an interest in applying a biopsy technique to evaluate andpredict meat quality in the live animal.