Rapeseed is the second most produced oilseed in the world after soybean, and after the oil is extracted, a protein-rich meal is the resulting byproduct containing greater concentrations of sulfur amino acids (AA; i.e., Met and Cys) and Lys compared with legumes and cereal grains. Rapeseed proteins have great potential as a high-quality plant-based protein for humans due to their well-balanced AA profile, high metabolic utilization of protein, a protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) similar to soy and milk proteins, and easily separable antinutritional factors. However, to our knowledge, digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS) has not been determined for rapeseed protein isolate and the level of processing required to concentrate rapeseed into a protein isolate warrants further evaluation of its protein quality. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that heat treatment of rapeseed protein isolate will increase the digestibility of AA by growing pigs and result in a DIAAS that is comparable to soy and animal protein isolates.

Lee, S. A., M. R. Bedford, H. H. Stein. 2021. Comparative digestibility and retention of calcium and phosphorus in normal- and high-phytate diets fed to gestating sows and growing pigs. Animal Feed Science and Technology 280 (2021) 115084. doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2021.115084. Link to full text.

McGhee, Molly L., Hans. H. Stein. 2021. Hybrid rye may replace up to 75% of the corn in diets for gestating and lactating sows without negatively impacting sow and piglet performance. Journal of Animal Science, 2021, Vol. 99, No. 9, 1–9. doi.org/10.1093/jas/skab230. Link to full text.

Lee, Su A, Laia Blavi, Diego M. D. L. Navarro, and Hans H. Stein. 2021. Addition of hydrochloric acid to collection bags or collection containers did not change basal endogenous losses or ileal digestibility of amino acid in corn, soybean meal, or wheat middlings fed to growing pigs. Animal Bioscience Vol. 34, No. 10:1632-1642 October 2021. doi.org/10.5713/ab.20.0838.

Corn coproducts produced from the fuel ethanol or the wet milling industries may be used in diets for pigs. Different technologies are used to develop high protein corn co-products, but in addition to providing amino acids to the diets, high protein corn co-products also provide energy to the diets. The energy concentrations in corn protein may depend on the concentrations of fat, carbohydrates, and protein in sources of corn protein. Newly developed corn proteins contain 40 to 50% crude protein. There are, however, limited data on how differences in the chemical composition of different sources of corn protein influence the concentrations of digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) when fed to weanling pigs. Therefore, the objective of this experiment was to test the null hypothesis that there is no difference in the apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of gross energy (GE) and concentrations of DE and ME among 3 sources of corn protein when fed to weanling pigs.

Rodriguez, Diego A.,  Su A Lee, and Hans H. Stein. 2021. Growth performance and carcass quality are not different between pigs fed diets containing cold-fermented low-oil DDGS and pigs fed conventional DDGS, but pelleting improves gain to feed ratio regardless of source of DDGS. Journal of Animal Science, 2021, Vol. 99, No. 8, 1–8. doi:10.1093/jas/skab129.

Mallea, A. P., and H. H. Stein. 2021. Cheese Co-Product Offers High Nutritional Value for Weanling Pigs. Pork Magazine, On-line edition, Aug. 12, 2021. Link to full text.

Whey, which is a co-product from dairy processing plants that extract fat and protein from milk to make cheese, has been used in diets fed to weanling pigs as a source of lactose. Whey powder does not contain much protein because the majority of the milk protein ends up in the cheese during processing. However, cheese co-products, which contain 40 to 50% crude protein may be used in the feeding of pigs, but there is limited information about the nutritional value of cheese co-products fed to pigs. Therefore, the objective of this research was to test the hypothesis that a cheese co-product may replace traditional protein sources in diets for weanling pigs without affecting growth performance.

Galkanda-Arachchige, Harsha S. C., Hans H. Stein, and D. Allen Davis. 2021. Soybean meal sourced from Argentina, Brazil, China, India and USA as an ingredient in practical diets for Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei. Aquaculture Nutrition. 2021;27:1103–1113. doi: 10.1111/anu.13251. Link to full text.