Piedmontese

The Italian herd book opened in 1877. The double-muscling trait first appeared in 1886, in the comune of Guarene d'Alba, and was eventually accepted into the standard. Canada began importing Piedmontese in the late 1970s and the United States followed in the early 1980s.

North America now has its own registry. The North American Piedmontese Association, organized in 2000, was the first cattle registry to make DNA confirmation of the Piedmontese myostatin mutation a condition of registration.

The result of the breed's myostatin mutation is double muscling: substantially more lean meat on the same frame, with very little external or intramuscular fat. Purebred animals are homozygous for the inactive myostatin allele.

Calves are born fawn and turn gray-white as they mature, over black skin, muzzle and switch. Cows run 1,150 to 1,210 lb and bulls 1,540 to 1,870, standing around 52 inches.

Double muscling produces a carcass with an unusually high yield of tender, lean meat, which is why Piedmontese beef is marketed to buyers who want tenderness without the fat that usually carries it.

Attention at calving. USDA research at the Meat Animal Research Center found that calves carrying two copies of the inactive myostatin gene, the mutation behind the breed's double muscling, were heavier at birth and needed help more often than calves carrying one. The study measured crossbred calves, not purebreds, and suggested one-copy calves may be worth producing where the extra meat yield pays for the calving cost. Ontario's agriculture ministry takes a kinder view, describing the breed as fully double-muscled without the usual difficulties and noted for calving ease.

USDA's germplasm evaluation also found longer gestation in Piedmontese-sired calves than in Hereford-Angus and Shorthorn-sired calves, so allow for it in a calving calendar.

The trade is calving and finishing. Double-muscled calves are wide through the shoulders and hips, and calving difficulty is a real and recurring problem in the breed, more so when a purebred bull is used on unsuited females. The same lack of fat means the meat is less forgiving to cook.

Ask for the myostatin test result along with the papers. In the North American registry the DNA test is mandatory, and a Fullblood is defined as homozygous for the mutation and traceable to the original Italian stock.

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