Ibagon, Jimena A., Su A Lee, and Hans H. Stein. 2021. Sunflower expellers have greater ileal digestibility of amino acids than sunflower meal, but there are only minor variations among different sources of sunflower meal when fed to growing pigs. Journal of Animal Science, 2021, Vol. 99, No.

Sunflower meal, which is the co-product derived from sunflower seeds after oil extraction, has a high concentration of digestible amino acids (AA) and fiber. The nutritive value and quality of sunflower meal is partially dependent on the degree of dehulling, the variety of the sunflower, and the oil extraction process. Sunflower seeds are initially de-hulled and then partially de-oiled using a mechanial prepress procedure. A second de-oiling procedure is performed using a solvent extraction procedure or by usign a second mechanical expelling procedure. The prepress-solvent extraction procedure results in production of sunflower oil and sunflower meal that contains 1 to 3% oil, whereas the double-press procedure results in production of sunflower oil and a sunflower product that contains 5 to 10% residual oil and commonly is referred to as sunflower expellers. Some of the hulls may be added back to the sunflower meal or the sunflower expellers resulting in differences in concentrations of total dietary fiber among sources.

The apparent ileal digestibility and the standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of crude protein (CP) and AA in individual sources of partially de-hulled sunflower meal fed to pigs have been reported. However, there are no comparative values for the SID of AA in sunflower meal produced in different parts of the world, and it is not known if the SID of AA in sunflower meal are different from those in sunflower expellers. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to test the hypothesis that there is no difference in the SID of CP and AA in different sources of sunflower meal and sunflower expellers obtained from different countries.

Almeida, F. N., J. K. Htoo, J. Thomson, and H. H. Stein. 2014. Digestibility by growing pigs of amino acids in heat-damaged sunflower meal and cottonseed meal. J. Anim. Sci. 92:585-593. Link to full text (.pdf)

Almeida, F. N., J. K. Htoo, J. Thomson, and H. H. Stein. 2013. Effects of heat damage on the nutritional composition and on the amino acid digestibility of canola meal, sunflower meal, and cottonseed meal fed to pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 91(Suppl. 2):27 (Abstr.) Link to abstract (.pdf)

González-Vega, J. C. and H. H. Stein. 2012. Amino acid digestibility in canola, cottonseed, and sunflower products fed to finishing pigs. J. Anim. Sci. 90:4391:4400. Link to full text (.pdf)

Soybean meal is a high quality source of protein for swine diets. Due to the growth in global production of pigs and poultry, demand for soybeans is increasing rapidly, outpacing production. Therefore, other sources of plant protein are sometimes used in diets to supply indispensable AA to the animals.

The most abundant oilseeds produced in the world, aside from soybeans, are cottonseed, canola seed (rapeseed), and sunflower seed. These oilseeds may be fed as de-oiled meals, or the full fat seeds can be fed to increase the energy concentration of the diet.

There are no recent data on energy digestibility in canola, cotton, and sunflower products. Therefore, an experiment was conducted to measure the digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in canola seeds (CS), canola meal (CM), cottonseed meal (CSM), sunflower seeds (SFS), sunflower meal (SFM), and dehulled sunflower meal (SFM-DH), and to compare these values to the DE and ME in soybean meal (SBM).

Soybean meal is a high quality source of protein for swine diets. Due to the growth in global production of pigs and poultry, demand for soybeans is increasing rapidly, outpacing production. Therefore, other sources of plant protein are being sought to lower feed costs.

The most abundant oilseeds produced in the world, aside from soybeans, are cottonseed, canola seed (rapeseed), and sunflower seed. These may be fed as de-oiled meals, or the full fat seeds can be fed to increase the energy concentration of the diet.