Beef-on-dairy: Meat quality of veal and prediction of intramuscular fat using the Q-FOM™ Beef camera at the 5th–6th thoracic vertebra

Fie Følbæk Drachmann, Mette Christensen, Jakob Esberg, Thomas Lauridsen, Anders Fogh, Jette F Young, Margrethe Therkildsen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaperJournal articleResearchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study aims to describe the meat quality of young Holstein (HOL) beef-on-dairy heifers and bulls sired by Angus (ANG, n = 109), Charolais (CHA, n = 101) and Danish Blue (DBL, n = 127), and to investigate the performance of the handheld vision-based Q-FOM™ Beef camera in predicting the intramuscular fat concentration (IMF%) in M. longissimus thoracis from carcasses quartered at the 5th–6th thoracic vertebra. The results showed significant differences between crossbreeds and sexes on carcass characteristics and meat quality. DBL × HOL had the highest EUROP conformation scores, whereas ANG × HOL had darker meat with higher IMF% (3.52%) compared to CHA × HOL (2.99%) and DBL × HOL (2.51%). Bulls had higher EUROP conformation scores than heifers, and heifers had higher IMF% (3.70%) than bulls (2.31%). These findings indicate the potential for producing high-quality meat from beef-on-dairy heifers and ANG bulls. The IMF% prediction model for Q-FOM performed well with R 2 = 0.91 and root mean squared error of cross validation, RMSECV = 1.33%. The performance of the prediction model on the beef-on-dairy veal subsample ranging from 0.9 to 7.4% IMF had lower accuracy (R 2 = 0.48) and the prediction error (RMSE veal) was 1.00%. When grouping beef-on-dairy veal carcasses into three IMF% classes (2.5% IMF bins), 62.6% of the carcasses were accurately predicted. Furthermore, Q-FOM IMF% predictions and chemically determined IMF% were similar for each combination of sex and crossbreed, revealing a potential of Q-FOM IMF% predictions to be used in breeding, when aiming for higher meat quality.

Original languageEnglish
Article number109503
JournalMeat Science
Volume213
Number of pages9
ISSN0309-1740
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2024

Keywords

  • Angus
  • Charolais
  • Crossbreeding
  • Danish blue
  • M. longissimus thoracis
  • Objective grading
  • Red Meat/analysis
  • Breeding
  • Color
  • Male
  • Adipose Tissue/chemistry
  • Photography
  • Animals
  • Muscle, Skeletal/chemistry
  • Thoracic Vertebrae
  • Cattle
  • Female

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