Author: José Pais – ACBM (pais@mertolenga.com)

 

The on-farm demonstration took place on May 27th 2022 at Herdade dos Currais e Simalhas farm, in Évora (Portugal) for a group of 48 persons from which 36 were beef farmers. The demo was organized by ACBM and with the support of Dr. Jorge Daniel Ferrario from Faculdad de Ciencias Veterinarias – Universidad Nacional de La Pata – Argentina. 

 Evaluating carcass and meat quality in vivo is not a common practice in Portugal. Therefore, knowing the technology was the most important thing for the beef farmers present at this demonstration. The key point to the demonstration was to understand the importance of this technology and its added value in beef production. 

 To the demo, were used animals in feedlot, and the main benefits seen after trying out this demonstration were:

- Identification of the most interesting animals for the production of a meat with superior quality characteristics. 

- Predict the optimal point of slaughter for each animal by measuring the subcutaneous fat thickness. 

- Data collection for genetic evaluation on carcass and meat quality.

 


The main obstacle observed for the implementation of this innovation is that this type of individual assessment must be carried out by an accredited technician, which is difficult to obtain in Portugal. Furthermore, this requires a cost for the hiring of this technician. However, an additional saving would be, considering the cost of feed, fat deposition is a more expensive biological process than muscle gain. For this reason, being able to set the optimal slaughter date is a very useful tool.

 Farmers would recommend this innovation to other farmers, for the reasons already identified, as this tool allows them to improve production efficiency and get better results from their farm. 

 Here you can see a short video of the demo held in Portugal:


 Link to further information on BKH:

 Muscle ultrasonography as a method for phenotype evaluation of meat quality in vivo: https://hub.bovine-eu.net/search/muscle-ultrasonography-utilization-as-a-methodology-to-perform-phenotype-evaluation-of-meat-quality-in-vivo

 Main factors of marbling level in beef cattle – The Angus Breedplan: https://hub.bovine-eu.net/on-farm-strategies-to-increaseimprove-marblingtendernesscolour-in-beef-meat--/main-factors-of-marbling-level-in-beef-cattle-the-angus-breedplan