Project Overview
Commodities
- Animal Products: meat
Practices
- Animal Production: feed/forage
Proposal abstract:
Fall-born steers, (n = 60) will graze both cool- and warm- season forages in succession to examine differences in forage type and age at harvest. At the start of grazing, the first group (n = 12, 12 to 13 months of age) of steers are to be harvested at the Lambert-Powell Meats Laboratory at Auburn University. Carcass characteristics are to be taken 24 h postmortem, and loins are to be aged for 21 d. Loins will then be cut into steaks and placed in simulated retail display or vacuum packaged and frozen until analyses. After steaks come out of simulated retail display, they are to be vacuum packaged and frozen until analysis. The same procedures will be followed for each harvest group of steers. Every sixty days, a group of steers will be harvested until all steers have been harvested. Analysis to be performed are: sensory taste panel, retail shelf-life, Warner-Bratzler shear force, oxidation analysis, occurrence of myosin crosslinks, fiber typing, total soluble and insoluble collagen content, perimysial and endomysial thickness, myofibrillar fragmentation index and fatty acid analysis. This experiment will examine differences between both cool- and warm-season forages and between age at harvest.
Project objectives from proposal:
Our objectives are: 1) examine differences between cool- and warm- season forages, 2) examine effects of age at harvest on quality and carcass characteristics, 3) examine forage effects on quality and shelf life characteristics of the differing age and forages on the cattle, 4) provide information to producers and researchers on the differences between cool- and warm-season forages effects on beef cattle.