Digest-Sep2011_Aug22.pdf

LEVERAGING RESEARCH

A GREAT MEAL FOR LIVESTOCK

By Debbie Belanger

Research is driving efforts to promote greater use of canola meal in livestock and poultry diets.

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“So we need to make sure we are providing these people with up-to-date research and technical information to make their feed ingredient purchasing and feed formulation decisions.” For that reason the CCC is allocating and coordinating $4.1 million in canola meal research over three years to examine how to better use canola meal in livestock and poultry diets. The research will also demon- strate that high energy canola meal can be used very effectively at high inclusion levels in swine and poultry feeds. The first study builds on the overall analysis that demonstrated the one-litre- per-cow-per-day benefit of canola meal. The study is seeking to better explain the statistically significant increase. Specifically, the research is examining the responses of dairy cattle fed canola meal-based diets versus dairy cows fed soybean meal, corn distillers’ grains, or

et’s do the math. If Canadian farmers are going to meet the canola industry’s target of producing 15 million tonnes of canola by 2015, that means 9 million tonnes of meal will need a market. Or for achieving a Canadian crush volume of 7.5 million tonnes, 4.5 million tonnes is meal. That is an entirely realistic goal because canola meal is a valuable feed ingredient. In dairy cattle, research trials have shown that canola meal increases milk production by one litre of milk per cow per day. It also has benefits for other livestock and poultry. The goal is to demonstrate those benefits to the animal feed industry. And that means conducting research. “The large dairy operations in our key markets – the United States and China – rely on feed companies, nutritional consultants and veterinarians to provide their dairy cattle with the optimal nutrition and feed mix,” says Les Nernberg, Canola Meal Manager with the Canola Council of Canada (CCC).

wheat distiller-based diets. With growth in the ethanol industry, distillers’ grains, the by-product of the distillation process, are becoming increasingly used in livestock diets and in some cases can be complementary to canola meal. Once the study is completed, Nernberg hopes to provide information to key people in the dairy industry on how canola meal can be more accurately formulated into dairy cow diets. Another study is examining the effects of using high levels of canola meal from black napus and a yellow seed coated variety (canola juncea) on animal performance. The study