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Collaborative project: Avoidance of boar taint by breeding and novel boar taint recording system – Subproject 1
Project
Project code: 2813500708
Contract period: 01.07.2009
- 31.12.2012
Budget: 455,701 Euro
Purpose of research: Experimental development
It is planned to ban surgical castration of boars in the EU starting from 2018. Fattening of entire boars is problematic because of boar taint. Hence, the objective of this study was: Measuring of boar taint and evaluation of breeding strategies to reduce boar taint. 1010 entire boars (Pietrain×F1) were performance tested within 5 stations. Based on the commonly accepted thresholds of androstenone (A) and skatole (S), 40-48% of the boars were allocated to the high risk group. High heritabilities for A+S and in general minor antagonistic relationship between A and fertility were estimated. Expected genetic progress was calculated via index theory. Within a sire or dam line, 5 or 9 generations are needed to reduce the proportion of high risk boars from 50% to 5%. A GC/MS-ToF measuring chain was constructed, which allows quantifying A+S directly in the head space of the sample without complex extraction steps. A direct relationship between headspace and substrate concentration could be established by application of deuterate analogous reference compounds. This innovative method is the 1st step in the development of an automatic and fast measurement system of boar taint.
Section overview
Subjects
- Animal breeding
- Animal Husbandry
