Erik R. Cleveland University of Hawaii - Hilo

Publish Date: June 3, 2006

The swine industry is re-emphasizing the importance of efficiently developing a quality product. To fulfill this objective, market hogs will need to come from larger litters and convert feed into lean meat more efficiently. For this to occur in your herd, favorable genetic change needs to be made in those traits that effect efficiency of production. Therefore, pork producers need to understand basic genetic concepts so that they can apply them to improve economically important traits.

Publish Date: June 3, 2006

Seedstock producers require sound selection programs to ensure genetic progress for their customers. This fact sheet will aid seedstock producers in determining their selection objective(s) and how to make selection and culling decisions while managing risk. The concepts of performance testing, expected progeny differences (EPDs), accuracies and selection indexes will also be briefly reviewed. However, this is not a comprehensive publication on genetic improvement.