The highs and lows of selecting for carcass quality

Authors: Engle, Bailey

Submitted to: Texas A&M Annual Beef Cattle Short Course
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/26/2025
Publication Date: 8/5/2024
Citation: Engle, B.N. 2024. The highs and lows of selecting for carcass quality. In: Proceedings of Texas A&M Annual Beef Cattle Short Course, August 5-7, 2024, College Station, Texas. p. 24-29.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Beginning with a large push from consumers to improve meat and carcass quality in the 1990’s, through selection, the beef industry has successfully made significant genetic gains towards achieving these improvements. The beef industry has done extremely well to meet market demands over the last 30+ years, and genetics absolutely played a role in this success. In doing so, the industry has demonstrated that genetic selection for carcass quality is not only effective, but also provides a long-term, stable solution for improved carcass quality. Any time there is strong emphasis placed on a small number of phenotypes, such as the selection emphasis placed on terminal traits over the last 30 years, there will be tradeoffs. These tradeoff’s can be managed in a variety of ways, such as applying balanced selection across many traits, increased weighting of fertility in terminal selection indices, or the use of terminal crossbreeding. Market signals suggest that there is still significant demand for high quality beef and there is still opportunity for continued improvement to carcass quality. Looking toward the future, genetic selection will once again play an important role in filling this demand.