Marbling and Maternal Traits Not at Odds

A new research paper dispels the myth that beef carcass quality must come at the expense of maternal function. Animal scientists reviewed nearly 70 individual studies in an effort to answer the question - has selection for marbling hurt cowherd productivity? Virginia Tech Animal Scientist Scott Greiner explains?Greiner: "In a nutshell, what we found was no it has not. And that marbling has a very small if not insignificant relationship with most of the traits we associate with cow herd productivity. I think the take home message as we use the various tools to look and come up with answers is that balance trait selection. We know that marbling is important and from a consumer satisfaction and meeting market demands etc. But we also know that there is a variety of traits which impact our bottom line. So balance trait selection for economically important traits. "In general - as marbling increases - so does milk production - the authors say.?Greiner: "I think if we look at the tools we have available through sire summaries and identify bulls which will take us in a certain direction in traits simultaneously those bulls are available and that is the good news in the beef industry."?Producers can expect to see more directional change in carcass traits - which are highly heritable - as compared to those reproductive traits - he says.