Table 6.
National Beef Quality Audit—2022: Means for USDA carcass grade traits using instrument data across the past three National Beef Quality Audits
| NBQA-20111 (n = 2,427,074) |
NBQA-20162 (n = 4,544,635) |
NBQA-2022 (n = 4,418,768) |
|
| USDA Quality Grade component | |||
| Marbling Score3 | 449 | 475 | 516 |
| USDA Yield Grade and components | |||
| USDA Yield Grade | 2.86 | 3.10 | 3.26 |
| Adjusted fat thickness, cm | 1.20 | 1.37 | 1.55 |
| HCW, kg | 371.28 | 393.6 | 400.65 |
| Ribeye area, cm2 | 88.45 | 88.9 | 91.6 |
1NBQA-2011 (Gray et al., 2012).
2NBQA-2016 (Boykin et al., 2017b).
3300 = Slight 00, 400 = Small00, 500 = Modest00, 600 = Moderate00, 700 = Slightly Abundant00, 800 = Moderately Abundant00, and 900 = Abundant00 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2017).