Correlation comparisons among early postmortem loin quality and aged loin and pork chop quality characteristics between finishing pigs from either Duroc or Pietrain sires.

Today, the United States exports 2.2 million tons of pork and pork products annually, representing just over 26% of U.S. pork production. In order to meet specific demands of a growing export market, pork quality and carcass characteristics are now integrated into breeding objectives. Color and marbling are 2 loin quality traits that influence consumer acceptability of pork and while correlations between early and aged ventral quality have been established, it is unclear if those correlations differ between production objectives (meat quality vs. lean growth). Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to compare correlations among early postmortem ventral loin quality characteristics and aged ventral loin and chop quality characteristics between pigs sired by either Pietrain (lean growth) or Duroc (meat quality) boars. Early postmortem (~1 d) quality traits included: instrumental and visual color, marbling and firmness, and loin pH on the ventral surface of the loin. Loins were aged until 14 d postmortem in vacuum packages. Aged quality traits included traits evaluated early as well as Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) and cook loss. Correlations were compared between Pietrain and Duroc-sired pigs using a Fisher's z-test. Early instrumental lightness (L*) was moderately correlated with aged ventral L* (Pietrain r = 0.47; Duroc r = 0.65) and aged ventral visual color (Pietrain r = 0.42; Duroc r = 0.58). Early ventral visual color was moderately correlated with aged chop L* (Pietrain r = 0.46; Duroc r = 0.60) and aged chop visual color (Pietrain r = 0.45; Duroc r = 0.57). Early visual marbling was strongly correlated (Pietrain r = 0.68; Duroc r = 0.84) with aged chop visual marbling. Within the Duroc-sired pigs, early L* was moderately correlated with aged chop L* (r = 0.64) but only weakly correlated (r = 0.35) within the Pietrain-sired pigs and those correlations differed at P ≤0.02. Within the Duroc-sired pigs, early ventral visual color was moderately correlated with aged pH (r = 0.44) and aged ventral L* (r = 0.57) but only weakly correlated (r ≤ 0.29) within the Pietrain-sired pigs and those correlations differed at P ≤0.03. No early postmortem quality traits were correlated (|r| ≤ 0.34) with WBSF or cook loss for either sire line. In summary, correlations between early and aged postmortem quality traits rarely differed between Duroc- and Pietrain-sired pigs. It is not necessary to account for sire line when relating early and aged quality characteristics.