Inbreeding Levels and Pedigree Structure of Landrace, Yorkshire and Duroc Populations of Major Swine Breeding Farms in Republic of Korea

The registration data of 15 populations from nine major swine breeding farms were investigated to check levels of inbreeding and the current status of pedigree structures of breeding stocks. The average rate of inbreeding per generation was 0.208%, 0.209%, 0.098%, 0.307% and 0.071% for farms D, S, K, H, and Y in Duroc, 0.071%, 0.188%, 0.685%, 0.336%, and 0.449% for farms S, H, C, J, and W in Landrace, and 0.243%, 0.123%, 0.103%, 0.165%, and 0.286% for farms D, S, G, H, and J in Yorkshire, respectively. The average inbreeding rate was highest for Landrace, intermediate for Yorkshire, and lowest for Duroc farms. In Landrace and Yorkshire populations there were few immigrant animals per generation. In Duroc, however, there were quite large numbers of immigrant animals per generation compared to other breeds. The effective population sizes calculated from the average rate of inbreeding were distributed between 73.0 and 708.7. Specific values were 204.8, 239.7, 508.8, 163.0 and 708.2 for farms D, S, K, H, and Y in Duroc, 708.7, 266.5, 73.0, 148.9, and 111.3 for farms S, H, C, J, and W in Landrace, and 205.5, 406.0, 486.9, 302.6 and 175.0 for farms D, S, G, H, and J in Yorkshire, respectively. The values were acceptable for natural selection for fitness and inbreeding depression. The results showed that there was no cause for concern over the current inbreeding level of major swine breeding farm populations and the inbreeding level was within an acceptable range.