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Talk To Your Seed Supplier Early

Following this year's drought, there's been some questions regarding seed availability for next spring.

Jake Ayre operates Southern Seed near Minto, Manitoba.

"As seed growers, we work in a two, three, four, five-year cycle," he said. "We are multiplying high pedigreed seed every year. We're making a plan into the future. We're not based off of a one year plan. Always as seed growers we're carrying over stock, we're trying new varieties. We are trading with other growers...We always try to have adequate supplies for the year or the years to come, as you can never truly predict what the situation is. As an industry we look to the future. We can't necessarily account for drought conditions, but we always try to have a little bit extra or we look ahead so that we're not just catering to our customers for one year."

Ayre recommends that farmers talk to their seed supplier as soon as possible.

"My advice would be for growers to contact their seed grower sooner rather than later, especially this year. We work with other seed growers across the Prairies, so maybe I don't have one variety but I know a fellow down the road in Saskatchewan that happens to have some. We work together as a team to ensure the success and viability of our industry and for our growers. Please contact your growers earlier this year, as perhaps maybe they have supply or they need to bring supply in."

He adds the Seed Manitoba and Yield Manitoba guides are also great resources to help make decisions for next year.

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US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Video: US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Eric van Heugten, PhD, professor and swine extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recently spoke at the Iowa Swine Day Pre-Conference Symposium, titled Soybean Meal 360°: Expanding our horizons through discoveries and field-proven feeding strategies for improving pork production. The event was sponsored by Iowa State University and U.S. Soy.

Soybean meal offers pig producers a high-value proposition. It’s a high-quality protein source, providing essential and non-essential amino acids to the pig that are highly digestible and palatable. Studies now show that soybean meal provides higher net energy than current National Research Council (NRC) requirements. Plus, soybean meal offers health benefits such as isoflavones and antioxidants as well as benefits with respiratory diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

One of several ingredients that compete with the inclusion of soybean meal in pig diets is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS).

“With DDGS, we typically see more variable responses because of the quality differences depending on which plant it comes from,” said Dr. van Heugten. “At very high levels, we often see a reduction in performance especially with feed intake which can have negative consequences on pig performance, especially in the summer months when feed intake is already low and gaining weight is at a premium to get them to market.”

Over the last few decades, the industry has also seen the increased inclusion of crystalline amino acids in pig diets.

“We started with lysine at about 3 lbs. per ton in the diet, and then we added methionine and threonine to go to 6 to 8 lbs. per ton,” he said. “Now we have tryptophan, isoleucine and valine and can go to 12 to 15 lbs. per ton. All of these, when price competitive, are formulated into the diet and are displacing soybean meal which also removes the potential health benefits that soybean meal provides.”