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The Midwest Cattleman · September 15, 2022 · P21

Gretchen Mafi is a professor of meat science at Oklahoma State University. She presented on cutability and value-added cuts at the American-International Charolais
Association October 2017 Listening and Learning Industry Session hosted by The Noble Foundation.
deposition of muscle and deposition of fat are different.” “I think that especially when you get into Prime premi-
It has recently been proposed that the current system ums and even when the Choice-Select spreads are really
isn’t always an accurate predictor of YG, especially concern- large, there’s no way,” she countered. “A lot of times in the
ing heavier muscled carcasses. market, the added weight, unless it was very efficient to pro-
“Maybe we should look at things to give those cattle that duce, doesn’t compensate.”
have higher red meat yields a little bit more advantage in a If a producer knows his cattle will earn a lower quality
yield grading system,” she suggested. grade, the best way to take advantage of extra pounds would
It depends on the end user, but in general, Mafi’s opinion continued on page 22
is that a YG 2 is an ideal YG in today’s cattle.

Quality Sells
USDA quality grades (Prime, Choice, Select, Standard)
are also assigned to carcasses at the packing plant and are
based on the carcass’ overall maturity and marbling. Each
quality grade has levels within it, for example meat may be
graded high Choice, average Choice or low Choice. The qual-
ity grading system is a way of predicting eating quality and
palatability. Prime will have less variability in tenderness
than Standard.
Changes to the quality grading system have recently been
implemented. USDA now recognizes dentition as a method
to estimate maturity for cattle less than 30 months of age.
A continual push from the industry to increase quality
has led to higher average quality grades.
“A few years ago in our industry, we would have said ideal
is to grade low Choice,” said Mafi. “I think now we would
probably say ideal is to grade average Choice, and we con-
tinue to push that.”
While it is accepted industry wide that Charolais has ex-
cellent red meat yield and cutability, sometimes the quality
grade of the meat isn’t on par with the competition. Mafi ad-
vises Charolais breeders and commercial bull buyers to use
the current genetic tools available to find the cattle within
the breed that do have high marbling characteristics. ANNUAL PRODUCTION SALE
“I think there’s [high marbling cattle] in every breed, and
I think identifying those—and you can’t be a single trait se- Saturday, March 25th, 2023
lector by any means—with marbling and growth, or to make
those matings and do both things, is ideal,” she said. Selling easy calving, high growth, structurally sound
bulls with excellent dispositions, and a select offering of
Pounds vs. Quality replacement females.
Recognizing today’s quality driven market and picky, af-
fluent American consumer, Mafi put to rest any theory that
a loss of quality grade premium can be offset by selling more Registered • Polled • Excellent Dispositions
pounds of beef per head. www.8storyfarms.com