This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium.
This episode was recorded at the 2025 Florida Ruminant Nutrition Symposium.
Microbial protein has always been Dr. Frikins’ main interest. It’s the most important and consistent source of protein for the cow, with a very high amino acid content. Histidine is the only exception, but bypass protein sources high in histidine complement microbial protein well. Our assessment of microbial protein is all based on prediction models. In his presentation, Dr. Firkins talked about what we can do to have consistently high microbial protein production and how to make the best use of the models. He touched on starch and fat content as two areas of focus, emphasizing a balanced diet to achieve a balanced supply of microbial protein. (5:36)
Dr. Firkins notes that about 90% of the bacteria in the rumen can’t be cultured, and there is great diversity in the rumen. There’s a core group of bacteria that almost every cow has that are really good at their job because they’ve been co-selected along with the cow for fiber digestion. The panel discusses how much the microbiome changes over time, host interactions with the microbial population, and inoculation of calves at birth and weaning. (8:47)
Dr. De Souza and Dr. Faciola talk about starch associative effects and their impacts on fiber digestibility, how sugars impact the rumen and butyrate production, and the importance of butyrate in de novo milk fat synthesis. Dr. Frikins hypothesizes that when sugars improve fiber digestibility, the sugar stimulates how fiber digesters do their job. Some studies have shown an increase in rumen pH when sugars are supplemented, which may be part of the mechanism of improved fiber digestibility. However, he doesn’t recommend using sugars when there is a lot of starch in the diet. (13:38)
Dr. Faciola and Dr. Firkins discuss some of the finer points of the dietary starch and fiber digestibility relationship. What are you replacing when you add more starch? What is the proper amount of effective fiber in higher-starch diets? On the other hand, if you decrease starch a little bit, there might be more room for fat. Well-managed cows with adequate effective fiber can probably handle more starch. Dr. Firkins underlines that starch is more digestible than fiber and thus supports microbial protein, but an optimum level is desirable, perhaps 28-20%. (20:37)
The panel talks about microbial growth efficiency and the energy-spilling mechanisms some bacteria have. Some models suggest that starch-digesting bacteria have higher maintenance energy requirements. The group then pivots to methane production and available feed additives marketed to reduce methane. Dr. Firkins notes that there is quite a bit of variability in the additives. He emphasizes that if we’re using these products, we need to know and measure what’s in them and have them be consistent. This is challenging due not only to variability in product, but also rumen adaptation. Dr. Firkins also reminds the audience that improving the cow’s efficiency in general in a variety of ways will lead to a smaller environmental footprint. This can range from improving reproductive efficiency to understanding differences in the microbiome of cows who emit more or less methane and trying to shift microbial populations to those with lower emissions. (23:12)
Dr. De Souza and Dr. Firkins discuss fatty acid supplementation and fiber digestion relationships. Dr. Firkins explains that in the microbiology literature, it's common to culture bacteria in a simple or complex medium, then add yeast culture. Interestingly, the yeast culture contains a lot of palmitic acid, which has been shown to improve fiber digestibility. He suggests the cell membrane of the bacteria is very critical. When fat supplementation depresses fiber digestibility, he suspects it’s disrupting the bacterial membrane. Dr. De Souza recommends 1-2% palmitic acid in the diet for optimal results. (33:58)
The panel touches on the importance and relevance of in vitro fermentation work, why histidine is the limiting amino acid in microbial protein, and Dr. Firkins’ passion for protozoa. (43:08)
Panelists share their take-home thoughts. (53:40)
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Scott Sorrell (00:10):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I am Scott Sorrell. I'm gonna be your host here tonight and with me as co-host for the first time. This is your first time. To the pub is Dr. Jonas De Souza.. And Jonas, you work with Purdue. What I'd like you to do is just gimme a little background about yourself and what you do for Purdue and, and, and maybe a little bit of what, what, what does Purdue do? Okay.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (00:40):
Well, thanks for having me here. So I am the Director of Research and Technical services for Purdue Purdue and Malnutrition. So Purdue as a company, I like to say we are a protein company. You know, we are in to raising chickens. You're raising beef and, and pork and animal nutrition. What we do is we, we use some of those byproducts and recycle those into the feed industry. So, you know, we, we use some raw materials from our own plants and from others, you know, invest, ingredient characterization, create feed supplements and that particularly go back to the, to the dairy industry today. So I'm native from Brazil. Grew up in Brazil. Moved to the US about 10 years ago. Actually first time that I moved, I, I did an internship on Jeff Firkins lab.
Scott Sorrell (01:34):
Oh, okay.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (01:35):
So Jeff was my mentor there at Ohio State. And then I did my io yes, and then did my PhD in Michigan State. So my major area of expertise is like fatty acid and energy metabolism. So did a lot of that, that work you know, in fatty acids and, and feeding different fatty acids to cows. Yeah, today I lead our technical team, you know, helping support, you know dairy and consultants across the, the, the country. Now were you
Scott Sorrell (02:07):
You guys hosted the pre-conference symposium here at the Florida ruminant, nutrition symposia. Were you involved in organizing that?
Dr. Jonas De Souza (02:15):
Yes, yes. So I think the main goal that when we set up, you know, Florida is is they, they, they really put a nice program usually, you know, it's diverse and, you know, I like it's a ruminant symposium, right? I like to go and not only, even though we are dairy people, you know, I like to see, you know, some of the beef data. And so yeah, we, we organize the symposium. And I think, Scott, one thing that we want to get across, one of the objectives is like we, you know, we sell or we support supplements in general. And, but a lot of times, you know, we forget the basics, right? Having a proper rooming function and maximizing it, it's, it's the basis of nutrition to, you know, as first step to go to a supplement. So that was the whole goal.
Scott Sorrell (03:03):
Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Well, thank you for joining us today and providing some color to the conversation. Today is gonna be Dr. Antonio Faciolo. Antonio comes from the University of Florida. So you're, you're here at home today. Antonio, just kind of give us a little bit of background on yourself, please.
Dr. Antonio Facioloa (03:20):
Thank you, Scott. Thank you for having me. Very welcome. It's a pleasure to be in my first podcast. Well, I'm also originally from Brazil. I came to the US 21 years ago, so I joke with some of my students that I've been here longer than them. And I did my graduate work in Wisconsin with Glen Broderick. And so my background started as a protein nitrogen utilization, and then I, I had my first faculty position at University of Nevada in Reno, where Jeff had the, the pleasure to visit. It was a great place to start my, let's say academic career as an independent faculty. And I came to Florida in 2017 and I've been here since. And so I have a appointment that is split between teaching. So I teach principles of animal nutrition to about a hundred students a semester. And and I have a research appointment mostly focused on nutrient utilization primarily in the rumen. And I also coordinate the graduate program. We have almost a hundred grad students in our, in our program and honors program for undergrad. So I did a, i I do a little bit of teaching research administration and and, and so forth.
Scott Sorrell (04:55):
Excellent. well appreciate having you here. You're gonna be an excellent guest, I can already tell. And our featured guest is Dr. Jeff Perkins from the Ohio State University. And he gave a presentation earlier today at the pre-conference symposia titled Diet Manipulation to Improve Nutrient Digestibility and Microbial Protein Synthesis. So, Jeff, if you don't mind, can you kinda walk us through what the main points of your presentation was all about?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (05:22):
Yes. Okay. Thank you, Scott. So I've been at Ohio State for 38 years,
Scott Sorrell (05:28):
Is that right?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (05:29):
Yeah. And a few national championships.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (05:36):
So I always have been interested in microbial protein. It's the reason I went into the business is it's always, which driven me any other kinds of research I've done has always been sort of a corollary to it. 'cause Microbial protein is the most important source of protein for the cow. It's the most consistent, really high amino acid quality. The one limitation that it kind of has is the amino acid histidine. And then of course, we can supplement high quality protein sources that are high in escape potential from the rumen that can also be high in histidine and can compliment them. So I was really trying to focus on what can we do to have more consistent, consistently high microbial protein production. When we do models, you know, we're estimating things and we're measuring a bunch of things with feeds that we can measure.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (06:30):
Even I went through some of the variability in feeds that was in there on the protein quality, but, but we never measure actually microbial protein. The cow gets, it's all based on prediction models. And so I really tried to spend some time on what are some things that I think are trying to have the models be more correct and more opt opportunity for microbial protein. A couple of those that I talked about were make sure we have appropriate amount of starch in the diet. One of the new things that's kind of been coming out, actually, Jonas was involved in this on how you feed certain kinds of fat and it improves fiber digestibility. And the first time that came out, I, like everybody else scratched my head, oh, that can't be
Scott Sorrell (07:44):
Alright, well talk a little bit about a balanced microbial population. What does that look like? I'm sure if there's a balance, there's an imbalance.
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Dr. Jeff Firkins (08:47):
Yeah, actually, so when I was in grad school, there were like 50 species of bacteria that we know of there's all the ones that could be cultured, and then we found out, whoa, there's at least 90% of the different kinds that are in there that can't be cultured. So now it became a whole lot more, and then we found a whole bunch of bacteria were renamed and there's way more diversity than we thought. And so there's a kind of a core group of bacteria ones that almost every cow has and are really good. They've, they're there because Mother Nature has put 'em there. They're really good at it, and they've been sort of co selected along with the cow, and we wanna support them. And the thing is, they've become really efficient at breaking down fiber because they've given up things that, that they don't need in their suitcase, basically.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (09:37):
So in their DNA suitcase, their jeans. So in order to have the jeans that they do have that make them really good at it, then they have to rely on other partners to help to provide them with what they need. For example, branch chain volatile fatty acids are required by most of the known lytic bacteria. So they get them when other bacteria breakdown protein to the branch chain amino acids that are the precursors for them. So they rely on getting these sources. And the, the thing I was pointing out is when we feed more and more starch, then there's more and more competition for these growth factors. And the starch users are the ones that are providing the growth factors in the first place. So if they think they have more starch, they're gonna use, use a lot, then they'll just keep 'em for themselves. So we wanna be able to have a balanced diet, to have a good group of bacteria all working together. And there's more than back, more than just bacteria. There are other kinds of microbes and how do we have the best that we possibly can to be the most efficient,
Scott Sorrell (10:42):
Not to kind of take us down a a a rabbit hole, but, but, but I've been told that and I'm certainly not a microbiologist, right? So I could be totally wrong here, but that, that once the microbiome gets set, it's hard to change it. In fact, I've heard that they've traded microbiomes from cows and they revert back to the way they were. Can you, can you talk a little bit about that and how that gets set and how, how can we really alter that then?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (11:10):
Well, a lot of people have been trying to solve that puzzle. Yeah. certainly the cow swapping studies that you're talking about got a lot of, a lot of press and they, so they swap rumen, swap rumen contents with other cows, and they reverted back like they were the original cow in the first place. So some of it is the you know, the, the calf is born sterile, and then it's inoculated by its mother and the environment, but only so much of that takes hold. But there's cer there must be certain key times in the calf's life where they start developing a population and once they're there, then the other microbes that are similar to them in the same niche, some they can sort of like just take over. Like they've planted their flag there. So there's more of them there in the first place. And so any of the other ones just never can really get a take hold. And so we know there are lots of differences among cows that people are trying to exploit to be able to improve fiber digestibility or decrease methane production and so on. And some of it just kind of is by chance of how they move up and down depending on various factors. And there's certainly a large host response. So the, the physiology, the motility, the interaction with the got epithelium, lots of factors we don't totally know.
Scott Sorrell (12:33):
Yeah. So you talked about the calves and, sorry, I'm gonna go back down that rabbit hole. But should we, or have we been inoculating calves at birth to try to, to influence that, that microbiome?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (12:45):
Well, the, the research has been done and of course the, the cow in originally inoculates the calf Okay. By licking her. And and then, you know, that's what you want to have. So people have looked at it, it hasn't been overly successful. I, I think maybe it'll be more successful if they try to inoculate 'em instead of at birth, probably closer to weaning time as they transition from milk to solid feed. And then you're, you're really inoculating the microbes that are more likely to be there after they've, you know, transitioned. So there's potential opportunity there and maybe it just takes more time to do it. So more, more inoculations. So some people are looking at it. We'll see how that goes.
Scott Sorrell (13:31):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Jonas, you were at the presentation. What were some of the key takeaways that key learnings that you got?
Dr. Jonas De Souza (13:38):
Yeah, no, I think for me, for really, really interesting to look, you know, microbial protein, you know, we always should be focusing maximizing, but you know, I did my PhD in the, in in Michigan and over there people love starch, right? Mm-Hmm. Oh my god. You know, it is not uncommon. You run 32, 30 3% starch diets. And and I think some of the key points that Jeff brought in, and I think that we sometimes you know, forget about, is like, I like when he made this, this, the comment about, you know, lytic bacterias run a marathon and you know, their lytics being more like sprinters, right? So, you know, how fast they produce, how fast they, they work through the rooming. So having that balance, you know, yeah, starch is important, but there is several associated effects that sometimes we forget.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (14:32):
And sometimes when we set up trials, you know, we, we've seen this many times you set up trials to look at interactions. Most of the times we don't have power to actually, it's not that you don't have any interaction between, between factors. You just don't have the power to detect that. So I think that was a, a really interesting key point for me, you know, thinking about your carbohydrate source, you know, starch and, and, and sugar on that sense, right? Like how they, they interact and I think it's really important in association with your, your room degradable protein. And, and that was gonna be, you know, one of my, my questions back and maybe to Antonio as well thinking about the, you know, if we are more moderate on start, you know, like, do we know enough about sugars, I guess, you know, like levels and sources because, you know, sugars are also a diverse family, right? And we hear, you know, we have different sources, you have molasses, you have so maybe some, some, some thoughts around that, you know, if we are trying to stimulate butyrate and, and microbial, you know, maybe some thoughts around sugar.
Dr. Antonio Facioloa (15:42):
I'm glad you asked because yesterday I was teaching women nutrition to my class and we were talking about methane, which maybe, well maybe we'll touch on methane later. But you know, some strategy to decrease methane, like, you know, increasing prop eight, for example, and butyrate would also work. And I mentioned to the class that one of the issues is that it's, it's not very common that we see a spike in butyrate. And my experience being that sugars are one exception where we see or at least I've seen increase in butyrate when we feed sugars. And at least here my experience being that feeding sugars, it depends so much on the cost. And if it's, if it's cost prohibitive, then but since even some of glands early work and sugars increasing intake and increasing even milk protein so I think there's a lot of potential for, for sugars molasses. Beet and, and some other sugars. But that has been one of the consistent effects that I've noticed is increasing butyrate increase in intake when in vivo and milk has a consequence of the intake.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (17:06):
Yeah. And I think butyrate has a, sometimes we forget, you know, when you think about milk fat synthesis, right? About 50% of those carbons that initiate de novo synthesis, they, they come from with butyrate, right? 'cause You need that start. I, I think that I do have a lot of questions that we don't, I don't think we have the answers for sugars is, you know and we think a lot about starch, but as you go across the country, you know, and that's one of the advantage of my position, being able to be exposed to different environments and diets. And you look, you know you go much more western diet where, you know where you were before, you know, you're gonna see a, a whole d you know, much a different type of starch, you know, a different concentration of starch, probably much more sugar on those diets as well. So definitely I think there is more space for us to learn, you know, sugars and how to utilize them. For sure. And
Scott Sorrell (18:04):
Do you think some of the the commodity sugar sources are enough or do, do we look to maybe supplement even higher levels or
Dr. Jonas De Souza (18:14):
Yeah, I, I think that's, you know, that's, that is, and I, I, I know there is some work on progress looking to sugar levels, you know, specifically, you know, I think that is a review from Cornell a few years ago or on procedures of Cornell about sugar levels, and they talk about seven point a half percent being kind of ideal. Right? I'm not sure if if that's the ideal level. I think, I think it depends also your, your starch level. I think one competes with the other. But definitely I think sugar has potential, specifically if we consider what Jeff discussed extensively was the association between starch and, and fiber, right? This starch will drive milk production, starch will drive, you know, efficiency. But it does have an impact on fiber, right? They are, they are correlated, you know. And I think that he's, maybe Jeff wants to expand a little bit, you know, some of the work that NA did on that sense, right? In terms of, of starch and fiber interaction.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (19:17):
Yeah. you know, it's always been, we've tried to figure out why, why do sugar sometimes improve fiber digestibility? You would think the opposite. And I think somehow they're, they're stimulating maybe indirectly how the bacteria that break down fiber or how they do their job. And so it's maybe helping others that partner with them. And that's my current theory. And so, but we do see this association, and I agree with what Jonah said, we have to make sure if you're going to use sugars, it can't be when there's a real lot of starch in the diet or I, it just adds to the workload to the low pH thing. But typically when sugars have been added, it actually increases room pH the opposite of what you'd think some studies have shown improved milk fat synthesis, the opposite of what you'd think. Again, that must be that it's helping the, in some way, the fiber digesters to be able to do their job better. So the optimal level, I I like to say maybe 5% added sugars or
Dr. Jonas De Souza (20:23):
On top of the basal
Dr. Jeff Firkins (20:25):
Yeah. But somewhere around there.
Scott Sorrell (20:27):
Okay. Okay. And then you adjust the starch accordingly then.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (20:30):
Yeah. And make sure, yeah. Starch isn't in the 32%, 30%
Dr. Jonas De Souza (20:34):
How Michigan starch.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (20:36):
Michigan starch.
Dr. Antonio Facioloa (20:37):
Yeah. So, so Jeff, I, I, I thought you start off your presentation great. With this relationship between starch and, and, and the f digestibility and that correlation that it seems to be pretty strong. But when I talk to students and nutritionists, I always tell them that when people say, well, in this case, for example, you increase star, you decrease digestibility of NDF. But I think it's very important to think about what you're replacing because just adding starch is a, is it's a beginning of the conversation. So maybe, maybe you would expand a little more. And when people are like, well, I want to more start, I want Michigan start because I want more milk. And then it's like, okay, so in, in which situations that would actually be a fine, it wouldn't be harming, let's say NDF digestibility. Well, there's types of NDF, there's what you are replacing. Are you, are you removing fat and adding starch? Are you removing sugars and add starch? What, you know, what's are your thoughts on some of those other variables that also affect that relationship?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (21:52):
Well, the, the next speaker after me talked about if you add more starch, you need to make sure that you have more effective fiber that stimulates rumination. And so there's more opportunity for other, you know, interactions like that, especially in the forage side. To, to go the other way. If you are in a higher starch diet and you decrease it a little bit, it gives you a little more room for fat or something like that. So that, that's, I think you're exactly right that there might be a sort of a sliding scale for how much starch that depends on other factors. But if, if cows, you know, have enough effective fiber and good management, then they can handle more starch. But the, the more that you have those issues than the more added starch probably adds to the problems. But high starch. So I wanna make, you know, make it clear, I, I, I understand starch is much more digestible than fiber. So it's energy and it supports microbial protein. It's just, I think we need an optimum. So if I were gonna say 28, 30% is kind of where I would choose, not, not so much higher, but like you said, Antonio, it kind of depends. Best answer I can give that depends off the top of my head. Yeah.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (23:12):
And, and I think you transition well into the topic of efficiency if a microbial growth, right? So start to wheel drive, probably more microbial yield, but I really like the basic work that you did a few years ago with Gene Hackman looking to energy spilling, right? So how, you know, it's a mechanism that, you know, and maybe you want to expand a little bit on what energy spelling is, but I, I found that fascinating thing. They have those fo the bacteria have those foal cycles just kind of to burn energy, right?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (23:43):
Yeah. That's the one thing that, you know, you know, talking with Tim Hackman actually it was, I remember in my office talking to him about it, and we started talking about some things and we're like, how can that be? How can that be? And it led to this whole area. It just, and he just, you know, ballooned it. And so what he, more than anybody else has found is that the microbes in the rumen have the ability to make more a TP per starting point of glucose through these energy conserving mechanisms where they, they make sort of a series of proteins that work together in complexes that allow allow the animal sorry, the microbe to get more a TP per unit of glucose. Well, if they have lots of glucose, they, they basically don't need it. So they start undoing it, and then it allows all this spilling of all, everything in reverse.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (24:39):
Of that. So ion gradients start being dissipated. And even methanogens spill energy methanogens, interestingly you know, they're, they're making methane, but they can uncouple methane so they can make more methane and not even grow very fast. So they just unbundle it and buy, and they do that by spilling energy, wasting ion gradients. All I think all microbes that, that rely on energy conservation mechanisms like that have to have a way to undo it, or it's too much of a good thing. That's kind of my prevailing theory. So yeah, they definitely can do that. And you, and the starch, the analytics, the starch users are the ones most adept at it. That's the, and that's what's been studied. And I think the analytics don't do that too much. They want to be able to just go in there and colonize new feed and, and grow into the, into the cell wall of plants and, and break it down and continue on. And so they're not into the energy spilling, it's the analytics that are more likely to do it.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (25:48):
So, you know, that I think helps explain, as you raise starch, you know, efficiency of microbial synthesis, your yield of microbes can, can, can increase in microbial nitrogen, but your efficiency really drops. Right.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (26:02):
You know, you know, like in some models, they, they, they show that the maintenance energy that the analytics uses is higher. So like, today's Holstein has a higher maintenance energy than one 30 years ago. Well, it's the same thing with analytics. They have a higher maintenance energy, but that, but they also can spill energy. They can, you know, you know, waste it like that. So of course, we don't want that, 'cause we want everything they use to be turned into something productive. And microbes are, you know, like 50% protein. So if we have more microbes, we have more protein, and the cow has more protein.
Dr. Antonio Facioloa (26:40):
Jeff, talking about the energy and efficiency of ization i, I thought one, one topic that you might, you know, touch on would be methane. And with all, you know, a lot of you know, hype with methane being a hot topic feed additives, promoting reduction of methane, how do you think we could better capture that energy? Because I think for the nutritionist and for the pro producer, if you say, Hey, here's this additive that reduced methane it only costs you, you know, cents. The person is always thinking about, what, what, how can I bank on that energy? And what are your thoughts on how we can take advantage of that to improve energy?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (27:30):
Yeah, that's, that's the key question. And you know, so some of the studies as, as I know, you know, Antonio some of the studies show that when you put in a, in a product that lessens the methane output, that some of the, some, some of the cows become more feed efficient. Mm-Hmm
Dr. Jeff Firkins (28:23):
And then the cow gets, you know, more energy per unit of digested feed that it, that she ate. So to me, one of the key things that a lot of people are looking at is when you depress methane, almost always do you see its precursor being higher, at least for a certain point of time after feeding its precursor being hydrogen dihydrogen. And so people are really trying to capture the di hydrogen I don't think there's enough di hydrogen being emitted that's explaining the, the loss feed efficiency, but I think it's tied to what is doing. If they, if they lose more hydrogen, then they're not making any of these, not making as much propane in other end products that that cow can use and helps the, help the cow to be more efficient. So propane is the main precursor for insulin, for example, or blood glucose. So we want to have more propane. And if we can do that without necessarily feeding more starch to do it, then that would be a good thing. So I think it's an excellent question. And if we find that answer that that's, that's, that's a home run.
Scott Sorrell (29:35):
Is that where a lot of the dollars are being spent today is taking a look at methane reduction.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (29:39):
There has been a lot of, a lot of money spent in that. And some of it is, I've actually been involved in some international efforts and there's a lot of variability. And some of it is probably because the, the products themselves vary. Like some of the plant-based products, one source is a little different than the next and so on. So if to me, if we're going to imp decrease methane by, by using these products, we need to know what's in them, and then we need to be able to measure what's in them and make sure it's consistent. And that's kind of hard to do. So some of it is just variability in product, and some of it the cows rumen adapt to. So the micros find ways around it. I, I, I think, you know, we have opportunities to really decrease methane.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (30:33):
Some of the products that are out there have been shown to be pretty effective. So we can do that. But like talking at lunch today, someone was talking about if I improve the cow's efficiency in general through a whole bunch of ways, that's a whole lot of less environmental footprint. And when I first got involved in the, in this international product project and so on, that's the, that's the thing I kept saying over and over, we ought to start there. Reproductive efficiency and all kinds of things. We have to do that first, let's do that. Have fewer replacement animals or maybe more beef on dairy, which was talked about here at the conference. And so let's go there, but there are opportunities in the room and that we can do this. Some of it is understanding the, the microbiome. There are clear patterns between cows that are low emitters versus those that are high emitters. We know the microbes that are involved. Let's see what we can do to try to shift towards more of the ones we want. So things like inoculating that you asked about earlier, Scott. So there's a lot of exciting research out there if we can pack, you know, put it all together. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (31:45):
So that was gonna be one of my questions is, is, is where should research be going? Where should the dollars be going today? If, if, if, if you were if you were president and had the magic wand, what, where would you direct the, the monies?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (32:00):
So the, the thing when, you know, in the first round when we had all this methane inform you know, there's a, a big push to do research in that. And even though methane wasn't decreased, maybe as much initially as we would want, the foundational research that got done that led to so many breakthroughs, you just wouldn't believe, like you were talking about Tim Hackman and the energy spilling, that all came to be because people put money into research where they had all these genomes. And people, really smart people like Tim could go and plumb those databases and find out here's what's happening. Wow. So if you have to, if you, when you look at the genes that they have, it's a whole lot more efficient than it is to try to set up an experiment and measure it. And actually, in Tim's work, he, he worked with somebody in, in Germany, Germany or Switzerland, I can't remember right now who, who actually did the work that proved exactly what he pos posited based on the genomes.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (33:04):
So that led to a lot of underlying research that's absolutely critical for what we're doing today. There's so much power and technology that can be harnessed toward doing it, but it's gonna have to be done with nutritionists and people who are, who can say, let's do it under these right circumstances, in which case we can put together diets or managerial capabilities to be able to, to make this actually function rubber hit the road. So what would I be putting money into? I, I really think we need to build foundational aspects like the genome work. We, I, I really feel like we kind of have to get back to the basics, things related to forage quality and so on like that. And so I would love to see us do more on, more on some of that, but technology is certainly a driver. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (33:56):
Jonas, anything else that
Dr. Jonas De Souza (33:58):
Yeah, well, of course I think one of my favorite topics, of course, you know, is the fatty acid fiber interaction and just telling a little bit of the background as Jeff said, you know, like, I think for years we always had this connotation, even, you know, in basic ruminant nutritionist, you remember my class saying, you know, fat and fiber negative related, right? And then when I think Dr. Armand start doing the work for NRC and start looking to the literature, he has a very nice paper on JDS that he published in 2017 that he really opened the door and said, well, it's not fat. You know, it's, it's, it seems to be related to the fatty acid profile. You know, not all fats influence fiber in the same way. At the same time, that was the time I was at MSU, we started having these repeatable results, you know, in terms of IC acid, right?
Dr. Jonas De Souza (34:54):
So, and then the first study that actually that looked to IC acid and saw a positive effect on fiber was done by Mike Cow in two, in 2013. So we went on this, this, this road to try to understand a little bit that, and I think Jeff explored really nice, the, the morning about, you know, why maybe Palme, and I think we can have a discussion on the lake seems to be a driver or seems to be increasing fiber, right? Where some, some other fatty acids would, would not, or would decrease. So maybe Jeff wants to expand.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (35:33):
Yeah. So like, if you go through the microbiology literature, there are some studies where they actually added free fatty acids to medium. But a lot of them, what they do is they, they grow something in what they call a simple medium or something in a complex medium. And they put in like yeast culture and stuff like that. Well, when you look at the yeast culture, they're, they have a lot of tic acid in it mm-hmm
Dr. Jeff Firkins (36:26):
And then explain what's happening to the room microbes. They're, you know, they're pretty closely related to them. And not that they're pathogens, but you know, genetically and they're able to change their cell membrane under different conditions. The pH goes down after feeding, they gotta change their membrane a little bit. They gotta, when they're growing, they have to, you know, go from one cell to two. They gotta, you know, pinch off the, all that is changing the membrane. And so I, I remember one conversation that I had with the microbiologist, Jim Russell and hi him, him telling me in a bar since that's
Dr. Jonas De Souza (37:05):
That's the topic,
Dr. Jeff Firkins (37:06):
That's, you know, what we're portraying here today that he, he thought the, the secret to life was the membrane. And and it's, it's just so critical for everything the microbes do. And and you know, when fat are negative, they, they disrupt the membrane. That's one of the things they do, not the only. And so anything we can do to make microbes, to have you know, to really have healthy membranes is helping them to grow, helping to do what they do best. And that's what we want for the cow.
Scott Sorrell (37:39):
So how much free fatty acid paramedic is, is enough or the right amount, and how much is too much? And,
Dr. Jeff Firkins (37:47):
Well, maybe, maybe Jonas could talk to that, but you know, for me, something like 2% or at a paramedic, I'm not sure where you're at on that. Yeah,
Dr. Jonas De Souza (37:55):
I think most of the data that we get is on that range between one and 2%. And I think that that goes well with feeding conditions in the field today in application actually Ben Wener where we have a paper under reveal now that is a, basically a dose response of matic acid and continuous culture fermentor. And we saw quadratic response on fiber and the, and, and the optimal response was between one and 2%. You know, we didn't see a, you know, further increase on fiber when you go over 2%. So I think it's very lined up with the MSU data and, and that's, that's basically our recommendation today.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (38:38):
And that's why Fernandez's paper had one point a half
Dr. Jonas De Souza (38:41):
Percent. Yes. It was kind of in the middle. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (38:44):
Okay.
Scott Sorrell (38:44):
So are, are we purposely putting in free fatty acids palmed into the, the RU because Yes.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (38:50):
So I think that is a connotation, right? Like I came from, so our food side, you know, they are always care about free fatty acids. And I tell people we like free fatty acids 'cause the Roma handles really well free fatty acids. Right? so I think for food quality, when you think, you know, or monogastric right? Free fatty acid is is indicative of not quality. It is different for, for, for ruminants, right? The first step when any oil gets in the OMA or any triglyceride or, or, or glycolipid is gonna be hydrolyzed and you're gonna have free fatty acid and microbes are very efficient and that, yeah. So I don't think, you know, I, I know high levels of free fatty acids, unsaturated fat may be an issue, but I think we know that saturated fats, you know, specifically paramedic, but steric as well, they're safe, you know, in the Roma on the free fatty acid form. So they're not an issue. Yeah,
Scott Sorrell (39:47):
I was just kind of thinking, so back in my early career. Was involved in bypass fats. You know, specifically mega lack. And so there we were trying to not make it available to exactly the microbes. And so most of the, my background was, okay, how do we get it through the rumen? Yeah. And so I didn't realize we were actually looking to specifically dose the rumen with some free fatty acids.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (40:09):
Exactly. So when you think about, you know, protected fats so you can do a salting process like the old mega lock technology. Yeah. That's more common to do, like with un saturated fats because you want to reduce that potential negative effect that Jeff was talking about on the main brain for saturated fats, you don't need that. 'cause They, they, they don't have the same effect. So we can work with set, you know, free fatty acid supplements. That's pretty common.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (40:37):
So Yeah. And there's actually quite a bit of and even with like calcium salts like act that they're still bio hydrogenation. Yeah. There is. They're not really in nerd. It is just less active so that you don't have the issues. That's
Dr. Jonas De Souza (40:53):
True.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (40:53):
Yeah. The, the thing I've always kind of wondered about is when you get more microbial cells to the small intestine, they're, you know, they're like 10% fat. There's a lot of phospholipids. And so when you feed a triglyceride, most of the fatty acids are removed. Whereas when you feed a, a triglyceride to a pig, then you have a monoglyceride that's left and that helps you know, helps to emulsify the fat. So if we're feeding to purposefully increase, you know, microbial cells, are we also helping to improve fat digestibility? I, I've, I don't have have any, any, any evidence for that, but I wouldn't be surprised. No,
Dr. Jonas De Souza (41:36):
I, I completely agree. I think that's probably a mechanism that, and this is one of the failure, I think of methodology sometimes that we have, right? Like most of, most of the times when you look to a mazo or DOD flow, we never, we just do total fatty acids, right? And you do profile, we never or there is very few data separating like bipolar fractions, right? Where you could see are these like microbial origin or these are, you know, free in the, and, and some of that basic work would be, would be really interesting to see that, right? If you really are increasing, you know, utilization or the bypass of that fat through the, the microbes, you know, can you quantify that or how do we quantify, improve, improve that? Yeah.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (42:22):
One, one of the other things, Scott, that that seems to be happening, at least in the few studies that have studied it, when, when bacteria take up palmitic acid, they kind of work with the long chain branch fatty acids, that kind of together like the 1616 oh sort of stiffens the membrane and the branch fatty acids make it more fluid and they help to toggle back and forth as the microbes need it. So I, I think there's a, a relatively good support for, for why this would be beneficial. Yeah. Particularly for the, the ones that break down cellulose.
Scott Sorrell (43:00):
Interesting. Dr. Facioloa. And any additional key takeaways for you?
Dr. Antonio Facioloa (43:08):
Yeah, fascinating discussion. Thank you for having me. Well I was going to, I I had a few questions in mind. One, Jeff, you, you mentioned I, I, one, one thing I liked about your presentations that you, you always try to quantify things and you mention about the difference between mazo and, you know, Abba Mazo or duodenal. Of course you've done a wealth of in vitro work. And I've, I've, I've had done some, some, some in vitro work and I, and many times we, we face a lot of criticism because, well, you don't know if that's replicate the rumen and then we go to in vitro. And many times we don't know if our cows in our dairy replicates a typical dairy in the us. And what, what's your thoughts on you know, methodological work that it's important and recognizing some of the limitations, but also the importance of doing, for example, ru mic microbiology work in vitro work to try to understand that, you know, efficient of different nutrient utilization. How important do you think this in vitro work are before we can better understand what's happening in the whole animal?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (44:32):
Yeah, really good question. Antonio and I go way back, talking about that. We've worked on several things including fermentors, if you remember that little story. So like when we do batch culture in vitros, they're sort of exploratory. And I know they're a lot different. The continuous culture ones like, like he and I have, are closer to the cow. They're still not the cow, but you can con control conditions and, for example, some things you can't feed to a cow maybe, but I can feed 'em to a fermentor. So I, I think it helps us to isolate factors so we can add this or don't add this. Whereas there's so much differences among cows that it's harder to do that. So I think the fermentor work really leads to cow work. We have to follow up with cows all the time. But it's, it's still is a good way to set the table for that. So I, you know, the whole first half of my career I hardly did any, any in vitros or anything was all with cows. And so I guess I'll finish out with their fermenters.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (45:43):
So yeah, I, I think, I think they all have their place, but sooner or later the cows have to tell you the answer for sure.
Scott Sorrell (45:49):
I kind of had a different question When, when you said that the microbial protein was low in histidine, it got me wondering from an evolutionary perspective, why, why would that be and why was that not taken care of? Is it it the cows just weren't given as much milk and had no requirement for it?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (46:06):
Yeah, I think yeah, that there's that And so histidine can be in a li you know, one of the key limiting am amino acids. It's one of the three that we talk about all the time. And it becomes more likely to be limiting as you lower protein in the diet and you rely more on microbial protein. Yeah. And I, I guess, you know, we just have to remember that microbes, they take the feed protein and they turn it into what they want. They, you know, I mean, so for most of the amino acids, they take a low quality protein and make it a good quality protein. And so, except for histamine, for whatever reason, they don't need so much histamine. I don't, that one I don't really know. Yeah, yeah. Why, why cows need more. But I think it's just, you know, just milk production has gone up so much that it's become more critical. Yeah.
Scott Sorrell (46:57):
Okay. Any key subjects? Have we missed, gentlemen?
Dr. Antonio Facioloa (47:02):
Well, I know Jeff is passionate about protozoa and we didn't talk about protozoa. And so you, you mentioned the, the amount of nitrogen coming from protozoa being, you know, quite variable and maybe should be maybe more than 16%, maybe. So, and I remember, you know, doing some fatty acid, like lauric acid, extremely effective in reducing zoa. And we could reduce 90% per zoa in just a matter of maybe one or two days. I think the ch and, and I remember back in the day being very excited about reducing per zoa and maybe even sparing some of the protein in the diet since we would have more bacteria and less turnover re bacteria recycle in the room. And and it seems like, and of course Brazo play a, play a role in methane play a role in glycogen and microbial population. So, you know, if you maybe could go back in time or if you had 20 more years of research to do, what do you think we still don't know about per Brazil? What do you think you know how, how that knowledge could help us with the efficiency, the new, the nitrogen? What's your thoughts on
Dr. Jeff Firkins (48:23):
Yeah, it's one of my favorite subjects. And I was lucky to have been at Ohio State for you know, several decades with one of the best biologists in the world. Hordy a great man and a great colleague. And I think there's a lot that is not understood about him. When I was doing my PhD writing up my thesis, you know, 1987, you weren't born yet and, you know, included in, there was a way to estimate ProTool protein, and it wasn't nothing. It was significant. And I think the way that we have traditionally measured microbial protein in the animal studies, it always inflated toward the opportunity to underestimate ProTool protein outflow every approach I can turn around and say, that's why it un it underestimated it. So I think there's always been this misconception that protozoa don't pass out, but there's a unique group of them.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (49:24):
It's just what, what Hordy did one time was one of the fascinating serendipitous things of science that you just, oh, you just, you know, makes my, honestly, my, my hair is like, what I have left is just wanting to stand up. So he, he had done the study with some sheep and he was giving him glucose. And these, this one group of protozoa, they love glucose and they turn it into glycogen, as Antonio was saying. And the more times you give it to the sheep, the more waves that they come up from the ventral part of the room and to come up and get it. And they, then they fill up with glycogen and they, they go back down and the more times you feed it, the more waves and so on. He had done all this study to, to show the waves of these, and then it goes, I wonder what will happen if I don't feed 'em.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (50:11):
So he didn't feed 'em and they came up anyway. So it wasn't chemo ais, it's that they have a biology, that's what they do. They come up and they take sugars and you know, the cow in the natural environment is grazing grass. It's full of sugars. Yeah. And so they get it and then they, some people say sink down, but I don't think they can sink through the mat. They gotta swim down. They purposefully swim down to the bottom of the rumen and then they sit there and act like couch potatoes and just burn up their glycation until it's time to swim back up. And so people have studied protozoa and like in water streams and so on like that, they have like built-in gyroscopes. They know what's high and what's low. They can do things that we just don't know about. And so that group avoids passage 'cause they swim down below the reticular mesa orifice, but all the other ones don't
Dr. Jeff Firkins (51:07):
And I don't know how many times I've said that over my career, the, the majority of protozoa don't have these mechanisms to avoid passage they're passing out. And the, those ones that pass out also, they're, they're, some of them are, you know, they break down a lot of protein and waste it bec why? Because they can, they eat bacteria for everything. They're nuclear. They can't even make their own nucleic acids, so they eat bacteria and get them, and then what they don't want, they just spit out and becomes sort of recycled in the rumen. But the thing that the metagenomics work has found is a bunch of these ones that are wasteful in protein, they are really stimulating fiber digestibility. Some of the values they're coming up with are almost unbelievably high contribution to fiber digestibility. I didn't talk about that today,
Scott Sorrell (52:13):
So the lower acid acid, it affects all of them
Dr. Jeff Firkins (52:16):
And, and other microbes too. Okay. It's like a shotgun. It just hits anything in its path. Got it. It's very destructive to membranes.
Scott Sorrell (52:25):
Yeah. Ah,
Dr. Jeff Firkins (52:26):
Interesting. But it's fascinating. I remember when you did that, I thought the same thing. We did work along that lines too, and we've had a bunch of like coconut oil and it's a good way to reduce feed intake if you feed too much of it like we did. Yeah. So,
Scott Sorrell (52:42):
Wow. Fascinating. Well, I think we're getting fairly close to, to the time, this has been a great conversation unless there's something that we failed to, to, to cover. If not what I'd like to do is ask you guys let's kind of, let's kind of bring it back to maybe something practical. What are some practical implications from the discussion we've had from the presentation today for a, for a practicing nutritionist or, or a dairy farmer? I'll give you a couple seconds to give that some thought, but Jonas, I'd like to maybe if you'd kind of start us off with that,
Balchem (53:18):
Tonight's last call question is brought to you by NitroShure Precision Release Nitrogen. NitroShure delivers a complete TMR for the RU microbiome helping you feed the microbes that feed your cows. To learn more about maximizing microbial protein output while reducing your carbon footprint, visit balchem.com/nitroshure.
Dr. Jonas De Souza (53:40):
Okay. I think from practical, you know, I think really I take off the, the starch, you know, don't be reasonable on your starch level, you know even though you want to push production how do you can manipulate that? I think it's never fail to mention again, don't, don't short cows on RDP. Right. Definitely. You know, another factor that we discussed today, you know, you need nitrogen in, in carbon working together in the Roma. And, and definitely from the practical standpoint, so your carbohydrates, your, your protein pools, but you know, you know, your, your your fatty acid strategy as well. Something that we, that we promote a lot, right. I think there is advancements, we don't know everything, but I think we are going the right direction, you know, of moving away from talking just about fats and energy and talking about fatty acids and what they can do. Specifically, I think palm oleic acid as Jeff mentioned, have, you know, we have gained a lot of knowledge. So those are the three aspects that will be looking at a practical, you know to implement some of these at at farm level.
Scott Sorrell (54:47):
Jonas Antonio, what are your thoughts?
Dr. Antonio Facioloa (54:50):
Yeah, I, I i, I would add to what Jonas just said, that it's, it's important to pay attention your starch levels, your fiber digestibility, but also taking into account that when you're talking about adding something, you are always gonna be removing something else. And what are you going to be removing may have a big impact if that's sugars or fats or what kind of fiber you are feeding. So as, as much as we wanna have that perfect recipe, I think it will change a lot. You, we saw the other presentation on quality of forage and being in Florida versus if you are in the East coast or in the West coast. So I think having that understanding as, as, as much as is difficult to, because we all want a recipe, you know, how much it should be feeding. I think it's very important to consider this complexity. And I think Jeff did a excellent job in his presentation showing the complexity of the room ecosystem and what drives efficiency in the room.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (56:02):
And my turn.
Scott Sorrell (56:03):
Go ahead, Jess. Yes.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (56:04):
Maybe you don't want me to talk about practical nutrition I grew up on a farm, so I, I always used to say if, if I couldn't reach my, my dad or my, you know, relatives on the farm, then the research was too,
Scott Sorrell (56:18):
You know, too vague. Where, where'd you grow up at?
Dr. Jeff Firkins (56:20):
North Central Illinois. Okay. And so I, I think it does co come with the basics, you know, forage quality and when you, when you do the best you can to make the best forage you can and do the best you can to get the most out of it that you can, it's the base of a whole bunch of things. And so I, I think what both of these two gentlemen said I totally agree with, so I won't repeat it, but I'll just say the adage, I remember talking to Chuck Schwab, who's done more than about anybody on amino you know, MP amino acids and over and over he says, including in his a hundred year review in Journal of Dairy Science Feed, adequate room, degraded protein first. And you know, that maybe varies depending on the situation, but we just, we have to provide it.
Dr. Jeff Firkins (57:12):
Our, our research shows it can't just be in the form of NPN, it, you, you know, the microbes need, you know, enough of that to work and let them do it. And then let's, in my opinion, once you've done that, then we can try to use protein sources and room protected amino acids and things like that more effectively because we've reduced some of the variation ahead of time. Let, they're more likely to work. We've already set the cow up and, you know, sort of you know, get past the foundations to these more elaborate processes and more expensive, but also more, maybe more likely to pay off, then. Yeah. So maybe that's the, the best I can leave it for you.
Scott Sorrell (57:54):
Yeah. Makes perfect sense to me. I wanna thank you. It's it's always good to have a Buckeye in the pub with me. Ladies, allow me to say this at least once per podcast. O Other than that, they'll cut it out. But I, I want to thank you guys for joining me today. This has been a lot of fun, very interesting. I, I'm sure our, our audience is gonna love it as well. And speaking of our audience, I want to thank you for joining us here once again we hope you learn something. We hope you had some fun. We hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Balchem (58:28):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to anh.marketing at balchem.com with any suggestions, and we'll work hard to add them to the schedule. Don't forget to leave a five star rating on your way out. You can request your Real Science Exchange t-shirt in just a few easy steps, just like or subscribe to the Real Science Exchange. And send us a screenshot along with your address and t-shirt size to a h.marketing at balchem.com. Balchems Real science lecture series of webinars continues with ruminant focused topics on the first Tuesday of every month. Monogastric focused topics on the second Tuesday of each month, and quarterly topics for the companion animal segment. Visit balchem.com/realscience to see the latest schedule and to register for upcoming webinars.