Addressing key issues affecting compliance rates of pasture-fed cattle in southern Australia

Summary

​Dark cutting is the major cause of non-compliance for MSA graded carcasses, with high incidences during autumn and winter in southern Australia. In South Australia, older, non-curfewed animals which were moved in the week prior to consignment, grazing grass dominant pastures with <3000 kg dm ha with low magnesium, were at heightened risk of dark cutting. In tasmania, non-supplemented cattle, drinking from dams and consuming pastures low in magnesium had higher incidences. Mycotoxins are also affecting the incidence of dark cutting. In spring when feed dries off, supplementation of cattle with 25 mj energy hd day using a grain based pellet increases carcass weight, muscle glycogen and reduces risk of dark cutting, but lupins were not effective. The uncoupling of ph and colour was not very prevalent in carcasses graded in southern processors. Ageing increased the bloom depth and eliminated the difference in colour at retail display. There was an immensely wide range of carcass fatness and weights presented to southern processors, for which lean meat yield could be predicted with moderate accuracy using msa measures. The intramuscular fat genetic value has the largest impact on the msa index. An increase in imf ebv of 1 sd would improve the msa index by 0.28 and 0.1 units for cattle long feedlot finished and finished on pasture respectively.>

Note: Until now, an MSA minimum requirement of meat colour 1B – 3 was in place. There is now no evidence that meat colour has an impact on eating quality. Consumers do not visually discriminate against meat colours (greater than 3) at the point of sale, where pH is an acceptable level. The MSA Beef Taskforce endorsed the removal of meat colour as a specification for the MSA eating quality grading system in December 2016; however, this project reports on the influences of meat colour as contracted prior to 2016. The removal of meat colour as an MSA specification will have minimal impact on the MSA grading process. Other industry standards such as the AUS-MEAT grain fed specifications will still apply (meat colour 1B – 3). For grain fed carcases being MSA graded, this will need to be included as a company specification in the relevant PBR line.</3000>