Transcript
Speaker: Hi, everyone. My name is Stephen Kilgher. I'm the managing editor of Feeding Grain magazine and the host of the Feeding Grain podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today as we dive deep into the issues affecting the feed manufacturing, grain handling, and allied industries. Today, Dr. Adam Kroll, senior nutritionist at Pioneer, joins the podcast to talk about one -ish high oleic soybeans.
Speaker: We talk about new research highlighting their advantage in dairy cow feed, why they're being toasted for those dairy rations, and how grain elevators might find a niche in carrying them. Before we start, if you're listening to this on our podcasting app, please rate us and subscribe. If you're listening online, sign up for the Feeding Grain Industry Watch newsletter to see the latest podcasts and stay up to date with all the news from around the industry. Now, on to the show. Hello, Adam. Thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Yeah, great to be here.
Speaker: Really happy to talk to you. Thank you for taking the time You're here today because I near recently when you didn't do the research but you put out a release on kind of the benefits of clinish high oleic soybeans in the dairy industry and what it can do for increasing milk production within cows and
Speaker: Hialake soybeans are just kind of amazing because they give more profit to farmers, hopefully more profit to grain elevators. A bunch of different people can really benefit, but we need all the press we can about all the benefits they have out there. So thank you for coming and talking to me today. Can you kind of provide a brief overview of what Plenish Hialake soybeans are and what the benefits are? Yeah, so Plenish Hialake soybeans are nothing that's necessarily new. They've been around for getting close to 12 years.
Speaker: originally designed for the food industry because the change in the oil fatty acid profile with more oleic fatty acids and less linoleic fatty acids had basically unique cooking properties and increased oil life in fryers in different industries. And that's where the product was originally intended for. And a couple of years ago in 2018, a couple of university researchers
Speaker: looked at, they were studying feeding various fatty acids in dairy cattle, looked at feeding plenish hyalic soybeans, and found that they can have some really positive benefits to dairy cattle with increasing milk fat. And so yeah, we've kind of run with it from there.
Speaker: Yeah, that's great. I mean, with any new product, it's crazy that even 12 years later, we're still finding new uses for it. So that's amazing. What are some of the key benefits that dairy farmers can expect from using plant -ish soybean, especially in terms of fat production in their milk and even feed costs and feed efficiency, stuff like that? Yeah, and that's really interesting because some of the original research was really focused on this concept that limalic acid in dairy cattle
Speaker: When you feed too much of it, and there's a lot of linoleic acid in corn and soybean products and byproducts, and so we feed too much linoleic acid to dairy cattle, we cause a condition called milk fat depression. So you actually lower the amount of milk fat that cow is producing. And so in punish soybeans, when we replace that linoleic with oleic,
Speaker: we reduce our risk for milk fat. And so we see when we feed them, at least some of the original research showed we get a nice increase in milk fat. That was 2018. And as more farms have started feeding it and some of the other dynamics within the feed industry, especially during the pandemic, when things like palm fat were
Speaker: hard to get and very expensive. Some of the dairies started just using the fat from these punished soybeans and found that it created a cost savings piece as well. So not only were we getting some bonus increase in milk fat and milk fat is worth a lot to a dairy. And we saw a lower feed cost as well. And now some of the latest research here in the last year or so has shown
Speaker: These cattle are becoming more efficient as well. Their feed intake per pound of milk production is becoming better. So they'll be getting more efficient. So we're just keep finding more and more and more benefits to these high oil ache soybeans.
Speaker: And the benefits of farmers on their turn on investment is really, really good. We've seen increases of over a dollar per cow per day of increased profitability. And when you start putting the numbers to that on some of these areas, that's a lot of extra money to just from high lake soybeans. Yeah, definitely. And in some of the research, roasting the soybeans has an effect on the properties. Is this like a common practice? Why are people kind of doing this?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great question. One of the most common questions we could ask. Whole soybeans necessarily aren't really, really popular historically for feeding because it was more efficient to take the oil out and then feed the byproduct. But there are places in the country that, especially on the East Coast, where a lot of farms really like
Speaker: feeding roast soybeans, additionally. And the reason roasting is popular is it does a number of things. One, and the most profitable piece of it, it increases the rumen bypass protein in the soybeans. So it basically doubles the amount of rumen bypass protein, which is a much more expensive protein. And in that process, it also destroys the urease enzyme. And that's an important piece of the equation
Speaker: Because whole soybeans, if they're not roasted, contain a urease enzyme. And if you have urea in the diet for these dairy cattle, that urease enzyme will split it and turn it into ammonia, which can be toxic. And so feeding whole soybeans, unroasted soybeans with the urea in the diet can cause some issues. So roasting, providing some benefits there. The bypass protein makes it safer to feed.
Speaker: and increases palatability, shelf life, or they can become rancid otherwise. So we were really recommending roasting. I know there's some logistical hurdles associated with that. A lot of farms putting on farm roasters. There are mobile roasters out there, but a lot of those things work for dairies under a thousand cows, and you start getting bigger and bigger dairies wanting to do it, it gets to be a little bit of a capital
Speaker: expansion. So it's one of the things where there is some ongoing research about can we feed these unroasted? Adam Locke at Michigan State is doing a trial right now and we've seen some of the preliminary stuff and it looks like even without the benefit of the roasting on the protein side of it,
Speaker: The roasting also seems to be having an effect on how the cattle absorb and utilize the oil side of it too. And so there are other benefits. We're not sure the mechanism necessarily yet, but there are other benefits to roasting and that did increase the value, the return on investment for these soybeans. So yeah, at this point, it's definitely
Speaker: A recommendation to roast if possible. It's really cool. It's exciting research. Obviously, grain elevators who want to carry Ioleic blenish soybeans either to transfer to other places or to sell them back to their own customers for their own feeding purposes, whatever happens to be. There's some steps to go through. What kind of many suggestions for grain elevators who want to offer this both to their customers and also want to kind of handle this type of product as it comes in?
Speaker: Yeah, so, you know, originally when this was meant for just the food side, and this was outside of my area of expertise, I'm more on the cattle side of things, but Roger Tyson had pioneered, worked a long time with setting up receiving locations for punished soybeans. And when they would do that, you had to have, obviously, a segregated bin to store them.
Speaker: And we would supply the elevator with basically an NIR type of a system that would analyze every load of soybeans to make sure that they did have the oil profile. They weren't just a commodity soybean. And so originally, when it was just that part of the equation, that was fairly easy. We had some large receiving locations. And as we've transitioned a good chunk of these soybeans towards the dairy industry, we have a lot of small elevators that are wanting to
Speaker: provide a product to the dairy farmers. And so there's some of the same pieces of the equation, just a lot of times on a little bit of a smaller scale. And so we still need to set you up with an NIR machine to make sure you're getting the thiolate soybeans. There's really not a whole lot to rather than making sure it's segregated. We don't want these intermixed with commodity soybeans. And so when a farmer goes to plant these, they have to have a dedicated
Speaker: final location set. So they need to say these, these beans are going to this elevator and all the beans are going there and ahead of time. And so the elevator has the ability to set a premium on the high lake soybeans. We publish all the premiums on our website. You can swear being offered. And I think last year they range from 85 cents a bushel up to $2 a bushel premium at these receiving locations. And on the dairy side,
Speaker: There's probably the step is the elevator have we have some elevators that have the ability to do roasting there so they can take in the.
Speaker: beans, the high lake beans, keep them segregated, roast them and sell them back to the dairy farm. Yeah, that's a big advantage, huh? So dairy farmers don't have to put in their own roasters if you start off that roasting ability to your customers. That's a big advantage. So are there specific best practices or guidelines for farmers and where can they kind of get more information if they need it? I know you have some resources on your site and stuff like that. Is there a good
Speaker: central location to find info? Yeah, I mean you can find some basic information on the varieties on pioneer .com. There's a whole page dedicated to Plunish.
Speaker: but probably the best thing would be to go through your local sales rep. Originally, the maturity of soybeans we put out to match where our central receiving locations are. As more and more dairies are interested in, a lot of these dairies are further north than we ever anticipated. So if you're interested in doing it, make sure that we have a soybean that matches the maturity that you are in and you have that ability. Today, the soybeans are only available in a
Speaker: Roundup Ready version. They're not available in the newer Enlist E3 soybean that will be coming. But depending on your feed pressure, that can be an issue if you have certain wheat pressures in that area.
Speaker: Very good information. Yeah, it's always kind of best to call your local sales representative and just talk it out. They'll be able to answer any questions you have without you having to mess around with searching on the internet. We've already mentioned a few cool research initiatives that future developments that are going to happen down the line is we figure all the advantages to these soybeans out. Are there any other ones that are exciting that you can see happening that any research that's currently going on that you're excited about?
Speaker: On the dairy side, there's a lot of really interesting things happening. This roasting on roasting, that is some interesting pieces of how that's working. We'll learn more there. Probably one of the biggest things that's being worked on that will have a lot of benefit for the dairy industry is for nutritionists who want to put this in rations, the current ration balancing software doesn't necessarily know how to handle the changing fatty acid profile in predicting performance.
Speaker: We're supporting an initiative with Cornell to try to update the ration balancing model to show that if we switch to a different fatty acid profile, we can predict that this is the response that we will see. And so as nutritionists look to balance rations, that's an important piece to them. Is this an economical thing to add to the ration or not add? And being able to predict the performance will be very helpful.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely. Well, those are the questions I have. Thank you again, Adam, for coming on and talking to us. I really appreciate you taking the time. You bet, not a problem. And thank everyone out there for listening. We'll see you next time.
