Genetic Relationship Between Weaning Weight and Carcass Traits in Hanwoo

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to evaluate the genetic relationship between weaning weight (WW) and carcass traits. Carcass traits were eye muscle area (EMA), back fat thickness (BFT), marbling score 1 (MS1) in 21 grade scales, marbling score 2 (MS2) in 7 grade scales and meat color scores (Mcolor). Parameters were estimated by REML procedure with MTDFREML package. Models included contemporary group as defined by the same year-season-sex at birth, linear covariates of age (days) at weaning, age of dam (days) and age at slaughter (days) as fixed effects and animal random effects for all the traits. Heritability estimates of WW, EMA, BFT, MS1, MS2 and Mcolor were 0.25, 0.20, 0.20, 0.32, 0.32 and 0.22, respectively. Genetic(phenotypic) correlation coefficients of WW with EMA, BFT, MS1, MS2 and Mcolor were 0.75(0.16), 0.18 (0.05), 0.41 ( 0.09), 0.40 (0.11) and 0.07 (0.05), respectively. Results from this study suggest that single trait selection for weaning weight would lead to progeny population having carcass with large EMA, thick BFT and decreased MS.(