Swine Improvement of Farm under Korean Swine Breeding Program

ChangHee Do1,*   ChiEun Song2   Woo Sik Yun1   Jun Heon Lee1   

1Division of Animal and Dairy Science, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Korea
2Korea Animal Improvement Association, Seoul 06668, Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcome of Pig Improvement Network (PIN) in the pig breeding unit, to find out the results and problems of the project, and to introduce the improvement system of the pig breeding unit. A total of 54,051 pedigree data and 34,252 test data were used from 2014 to 2019 for a Korean pig breeder participating in PIN. In the evaluation of the results of the sharing of genetic resources of PIN, the paternal breed, Duroc, obviously showed better performance in the growing traits. On the other hand, the maternal breeds of Landrace and Yorkshire showed lower grades in the reproduction traits than in the existing breeding system, through the sharing of semen. In sharing of Yorkshire genetic resource, the yearly fluctuations in the performance are also severe, causing problems with uniformity. Even though the performance of the paternal breed is well accomplished according to the planned intention of PIN, in maternal breeds, there is a problem in the selection method of boars. The selection of maternal breed boars should be focused on growth traits as well as on reproduction traits. Including the pedigree index for the number of born alive in the selection criteria may be an option. As the PIN project is the basis for Korean breeders, it is expected that Korean brand breeds such as Denmark's Danbred will be obtained after all.

Figures & Tables

Figure 1. Work and genetic flow of Pig Improvement Network in Korea (GGP: great grand parent, GP: grand parent, CS: commercial stock).