The U.S. beef industry continues to rely on a yield grading system developed in the 1960s, despite significant changes in cattle genetics and size. Dale Woerner, meat scientist at Texas Tech University, told the more than 100 producers in attendance at yesterday’s KLA/Kansas State University Ranch Management Field Day near Leoti that the outdated equation only accounts for about 40% of the saleable red meat yield variation seen between carcasses, limiting its usefulness as an economic signal.
“It doesn’t account for trim, thin meats or other parts of a carcass that contribute to the cutout value,” he said.
To address this, Woerner and a team of researchers are exploring technologies such as CT scanning, 3D imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) to create a more accurate system.