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Lucerne-derived flavour in sheep meat as affected by season and duration of grazing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

R. J. Park ,
Anne Ford ,
D. J. Minson  and
R. I. Baxter
R. J. Park
Affiliation:
CSIRO Division of Food Research, Meat Research Laboratory, Cannon Hill, Queensland, 4170, Australia
Anne Ford
Affiliation:
CSIRO Division of Food Research, Meat Research Laboratory, Cannon Hill, Queensland, 4170, Australia
D. J. Minson
Affiliation:
CSIRO Division of Tropical Agronomy, St Lucia, Queensland, 4067, Australia
R. I. Baxter
Affiliation:
CSIRO Division of Mathematical Statistics, North Ryde, New South Wales, 2113, Australia
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Summary

Merino wether lambs and yearling sheep grazed irrigated lucerne or grass pastures in the period immediately before slaughter. Some of the sheep grazed continuously on the lucerne or grass for up to 6 months, while others grazed grass and then lucerne in the 4 weeks immediately before slaughter, over this same period. A laboratory taste panel compared the flavour of the meat from the grass and lucerne-fed sheep.

The intensity of the flavour characteristic of cooked meat from lucerne-fed lambs or sheep was found to increase in intensity with increasing length of time of grazing the legume. In addition, both 4-week and continuous-lucerne grazing treatments exhibited significant seasonal effects, in which the intensity of the lucerne-derived taint was found to vary throughout the year, with a maximum intensity appearing when lucerne was grazed in the cooler months.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 84 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 209 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

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