Agricultural News
New Research Indicates Cattle Producers Could Increase Both Marbling and Feed Efficiency
Thu, 17 May 2012 11:41:42 CDT
Efficiently increasing the amount of marbling in their beef is always near the top of most producers' wish lists. And the more cattlemen know about marbling, the better their chances of making more researchers like Brad Johnson of Texas Tech University say.
"We've done a series of experiments that clearly have shown that the cells, the adipocytes that make up marbling, are truly different than the cells that make up subcutaneous or back fat. And, in fact, they probably more closely match up with muscle cells than they do with back fat cells," Johnson says.
That discovery stood conventional wisdom for cattle raisers on its head.
"We're all taught early on that internal fat is the first fat deposited to protect our vital organs. Then we have back fat and inter-seam fat which is between muscles which is kind of simultaneous. And we're always taught that marbling or intramuscular fat is the last fat to be deposited.
"In fact, we're learning, as part of this research we've done in our team, we're learning that marbling development actually happens in gestation for that animal. We can impact--via fetal programming mechanisms--we can impact potential marbling in that calf in utero of what its outcome is going to be at the end of the feeding period."
Johnsons says these new revelations could give rise to new management strategies and products aimed at enhancing beef quality and efficiency.
"Much of the research in our lab has been trying to exploit those differences with the hope that at some point maybe we can intervene and increase marbling significantly but without increasing back fat. And, obviously, with our increases in commodity prices, feed efficiency is such a huge concern. And as animals get fatter, feed conversion tends to worsen.
"So, if we can use our growth technologies available and really maintain good feed efficiency, but yet get the animals to marble, that's a huge advantage to the cattle feeder."
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