Analysis of environmental effects and estimation of genetic parameters for carcass traits in Hanwoo steers produced through embryo transfer

Abstract

This study estimated the environmental effects and genetic parameters for carcass traits of 2,309 Hanwoo steers produced through Embryo Transfer (ET) to confirm the performance improvement achieved. The data used for analysis collected information on offspring produced by ET from 2012 to 2020. SAS 9.4 GLM package was used to analyze the environmental effects affecting carcass traits, and genetic parameters were estimated using the REMLF90 program for heritability, genetic correlation, and phenotypic correlation. The collected Carcass Weight (CWT), Eye Muscle Area (EMA), Back-Fat Thickness (BFT), and Marbling Score (MS) were 505.2±58.19kg, 105.57±13.41cm2, 12.76±4.27mm, and 7.25±1.61 points, respectively. It was found that the environmental effect of growth area and slaughter month had a significant effect (p<0.01) on carcass traits. Heritability was 0.51, 0.64, 0.36, and 0.59 in CWT, EMA, BFT, and MS, respectively, and high heritability was observed in all traits except BFT. Due to the characteristics of ET, it is considered that the effect of genetic improvement was more pronounced because there were many offspring with the same parents or the same father or mother. Therefore, it is judged that more efficient improvement effect and performance can be confirmed if an optimal environmental model is set based on the results of this study and used as basic data for breeding. If these results continue to accumulate, it is thought that it will be able to contribute to the increase in farm household income through the improvement effect.