Newsletter

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is predicting soybean production for the 2016/2017 marketing year that began September 1, at 4,307 million bushels of which 1,930 million bushels will be crushed and 2,030 million will be exported. These values are significantly higher than previous years.

Domestic production of soybean meal is predicted at 46,311 thousand short tons which is also greater than previous marketing years. Both domestic soybean meal use and exports are estimated higher than previous marketing years. Bottom line, there are adequate supplies of soybean and soybean meal available for both the domestic and foreign user of soybeans and soybean meal. Our farmers are looking forward to the coming spring and planting the new crop. With “normal” weather farmers will continue to produce a raw material important to providing a protein feed ingredient critical to the World’s growing demand for meat, milk and eggs.

U.S. Soybean Production and Use

U.S. Soybean Meal Production and Use

The U.S, Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service office of Global Analysis has published values for soybean meal use by country. The values are interesting and somewhat surprising that nearly 60% of the soybean meal is consumed in three countries; China, the European Union and the United States. It is not surprising that these same countries have large numbers of swine, poultry and aquaculture, all needing a quality protein ingredient to formulate feeds which support commercial production of meat, milk and eggs.

World Consumption of Soybean Meal

Apparent metabolizable energy (AME) and net energy (NE) values of regular (SBM) and dehulled soybean meal (DSBM) were determined for broiler breeding cocks using the indirect calorimetry method. The test diets replaced 25% of the corn-soybean meal basal diet. Eighteen 50-week-old Arbor Acre broiler breeding cocks were used in a completely randomized design to determine energy values of the test ingredients. After a 7 day dietary adaptation period, 6 birds from each treatment were assigned to individual respiration chambers for energy measurement via gaseous exchange and total excreta collection for 10 days. The heat production (HP), fasting heat production (FHP), and respiration quotient (RQ) were not influenced by the various experimental diets. Results of this experiment found the soybean meal substitution had no effect on HP, FHP, or RQ. The average AME and NE content was calculated to be 2,492 and 1,581 kcal/kg (DM basis) for SBM and 2,580 and 1,654 kcal/kg (DM basis) for DSBM, respectively.

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary non-phytate phosphorus (NPP) level on growth performance, bone characteristics and phosphorus metabolism-related gene expressions, to evaluate the dietary NPP requirement of broiler chicks fed a conventional corn-soybean meal diet from 1 to 21 d of age. A total of 540 day-old Arbor Acres male chicks were randomly allocated to one of nine treatments with six replicate cages of 10 birds per cage in a completely randomized design, and fed a basal corn-soybean meal diet (containing 0.08% of NPP) supplemented with 0.10, 0.15, 0.25, 0.30, 0.35, 0.40, 0.45, or 0.50% of inorganic phosphorus in the form of CaHPO4•2H2O, respectively. Each diet contained the constant calcium content of about 1.0%.

The results showed that daily weight gain, serum inorganic P, tibia bone strength, tibia ash percentage, tibia bone mineral content (BMC) and density (BMD), middle toe ash percentage, middle toe BMC and BMD were affected (P ‹ 0.0001) by dietary NPP level, and increased linearly (P ‹ 0.0001) and quadraticly (P ‹ 0.004) as dietary NPP levels increased. The gene expression of type IIb sodium-phosphate cotransporter (NaPi-IIb) in the duodenum was affected (P ‹ 0.03) and decreased linearly (P ‹ 0.002) as dietary NPP levels increased. Dietary NPP requirements estimated based on fitted broken-line models (P ‹ 0.0001) of the sensitive indices including daily weight gain, tibia bone strength, tibia ash percentage, tibia BMC and BMD as well as middle toe ash percentage were 0.34–0.39%. The results from this study indicate that tibia BMC and BMD might be new, sensitive, and noninvasive criteria to evaluate the dietary NPP requirements of broilers, and the dietary NPP requirement is 0.39% for broiler chicks fed a conventional corn-soybean meal diet from 1 to 21 d of age.

A 5-week feeding trial was conducted to examine the effect of γ-ray irradiation on the inclusion of soybean meal (SBM) and soy protein concentrate (SPC) in diets of juvenile golden pompano (Trachinotus ovatus). One diet containing 320 g kg−1 fish meal served as a reference (C), and another four diets were formulated with 75% of the fish meal replaced by SBM, SPC, SBM irradiated with γ-ray at 30 kGy (SBM30) or SPC irradiated with γ-ray at 30 kGy (SPC30).

Results indicated that the weight gain was higher in fish fed diets SBM30 and SPC30 compared to the fish fed diets SBM and SPC. No significant differences were found in feed conversion ratio, nitrogen retention efficiency, phosphorus retention efficiency, condition factor, hepatosomatic index, body composition, waste outputs of nitrogen and phosphorus either between fish fed diets SBM and SBM30 or between fish fed diets SPC and SPC30. No significant differences were found in nitrogen retention, condition factor, hepatosomatic index and body composition (i.e. moisture, crude protein, crude lipid and ash) between fish fed the control diets and those fed the irradiated protein sources. The macromolecular proteins in SBM and SPC were degraded, whereas the contents of peptides with molecular weight ‹6.5 kDa were increased by γ-ray irradiation. This study reveals that γ-ray irradiation can improve the performance of SBM and SPC as a fish meal substitute in the golden pompano diet.

The Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms of the European Food Safety Authority (GMO Panel) previously assessed the two single events combined to produce soybean 305423 × 40-3-2 did not identify safety concerns. No new data on the single events affecting the original conclusions were identified. Based on the molecular, agronomic, phenotypic and compositional characteristics, the combination of soybean events 305423 and 40-3-2 in the two-event stack soybean did not raise concerns regarding food and feed safety or nutrition. The combination of the newly expressed proteins in the two-event stack soybean did not raise human or animal health concerns. No compositional differences requiring further assessment were identified between soybean 305423 × 40-3-2, the non-GM comparator, additional comparators and the non-GM commercial soybean reference varieties, except for the altered fatty acid profile (consistent with the intended trait).

Nutritional assessment of food products from soybean 305423 × 40-3-2 identified no concerns for human health and nutrition. There are no concerns regarding the use of feed ingredients derived from defatted toasted soybean 305423 × 40-3-2 meal. There are no indications of an increased likelihood of establishment and spread of occasional feral soybean plants, unless these are exposed to acetolactate-synthase-inhibiting or glyphosate-containing herbicides. Risks associated with the unlikely, but theoretically possible, horizontal transfer of recombinant genes from soybean 305423 × 40-3-2 to bacteria were not identified. Considering the scope of the application, interactions with biotic and abiotic environments are not considered a relevant issue. The post-market environmental monitoring plan and reporting intervals are in line with the intended uses of soybean 305423 × 40-3-2. The GMO Panel is of the opinion that soybean 305423 × 40-3-2 is as safe as the non-GM comparator and non-GM commercial soybean varieties with respect to potential effects on human and animal health and environment in the context of its scope.

A review of glycerin/glycerol was recently published in the World’s Poultry Science journal. The authors reported that glycerin or glycerol (C3H5(OH)3) is one of the most valuable and versatile chemical materials known. The term ‘glycerin’ refers in general to a commercial solution of glycerol in water of which the main constituent is glycerol. Glycerin is an odorless, colorless, viscous liquid with a sweet taste. It is completely soluble in both alcohol and water. Glycerin is the main co-product derived from biodiesel production. It is produced by a KOH- or NaOH-catalysed transesterification of the triacylglycerols in fat or oil along with an alcohol. Glycerin is an important ingredient for the production of soaps, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food. Additionally, glycerin is highly stable under normal storage conditions, practically non-irritating in its different uses, suitable for interactions with other chemical materials and has no negative environmental impacts. Nowadays, with increasing glycerin production and its availability on the market, many new and novel uses are expected to be developed, particularly as alternative energy source for poultry diets. Furthermore, glycerin plays an essential role in body cellular metabolism. The reviewers discussed various trials using glycerin in poultry diets as an energy source and its effects on different parameters in the birds. In general positive responses were reported in most studies when glycerin was included in poultry diets up to ten percent.

U.S. soybean farmers through their soybean checkoff are providing funding for research to improve the utilization of soybean meal. Some of the projects underway are:

Project Title: Assessing nutritional value of soybean meal: identifying nutritional traits that would improve market position of soybeans.
Lead Principal Investigator: Monty Kerley (University of Missouri).
Project Sponsor: Missouri Soybean Merchandizing Council.

The goal of this research is to develop a model for evaluating nutritionally important attributes of soybean meal and rapid NIR prediction of these attributes. The objectives of this research project is to identify soybean cultivars that have higher energy and amino acid digestibility; to develop a model sensitive enough to determine level of improvement in soybeans selected for nutritional attributes; and to develop NIR calibrations for assessing nutritional value of soybeans (meal).

Project Title: Nutritional evaluation of soybean meal generated from high oleic acid soybeans.
Lead Principal Investigator: Monty Kerley (University of Missouri).
Project Sponsor: Missouri Soybean Merchandizing Council.

The goal of this proposal is to develop nutritional information (amino acid profile, amino acid digestibility, energy digestibility) for soybean meal processed from high oleic soybean varieties. Information developed will be provided to nutritionists responsible for formulating feeds for livestock and poultry operations.

Project Title: Using soybean meal protected from rumen degradation to improve health of receiving calves and feed efficiency of stocker and feedlot calves.
Lead Principal Investigator: Monty Kerley (University of Missouri).
Project Sponsor: Missouri Soybean Merchandizing Council.

The goal of this research is to demonstrate the economic value of rumen undigestible protein (RUP) from soybean meal for receiving, stocker and feedlot cattle.

Project Title: Non-transgenic soybeans with broad plant disease resistance and high protein.
Lead Principal Investigator: Ling Li (Iowa State University).
Project Sponsor: Iowa Soybean Association.

The transgenic soybean QQS interactor overexpressing mutants will be tested for seed composition (protein and oil content) in the field and transgenic QQS interactor overexpressing mutants with increased seed protein will be identified. These mutants with higher seed protein levels will be made available for soybean breeding programs.