Duroc portions

Background and Objective

Duroc crossbreeding is often recommended to improve market image of organic pork production. Increased duroc portions improve meat quality in terms of meat colour, drip loss and intramuscular fat content. But in contrast, there is the danger of impaired carcass quality with lower lean meat percentages leading to inferior economics.

Following this background, the influence of varying Duroc gene proportion on fattening, carcass and meat characteristics under organic production conditions was evaluated.

Approach

A total of 190 pigs were fattened in two replications at the testing station at Rohrsen. Fattening pigs with 0%, 25%, 50% and 75% Duroc gene proportion were tested under organic feeding and housing conditions in groups of 4 to 6 animals for performance, carcass and meat quality.

Results

The results clearly show that for a meat quantity orientated marketing goal the Duroc gene proportion should not exceed 50%. With increasing Duroc gene proportion lean meat yield is significantly reduced. The group with 75% Duroc gene proportion also shows from a breeding point of view a significantly impaired feed conversion ratio. With increasing Duroc gene proportion the intramuscular fat increases significantly. Fattening pigs with 25% Duroc gene proportion already show an increase in meat quality with only a small decrease in lean meat yield. So this variant seems to have the potential to meet consumers’ and producers’ demands for pigs in organic production systems. Only a change in the payment system for slaughter pigs which honors higher intramuscular fat to balance the decrease in lean meat yield can justify the use of fattening pigs for organic production systems with 75% Duroc gene proportion.