Guests: Dr. Kevin Harvatine, Penn State University; Dr. Lynn Davis, Quality Roasting, Inc. Dr. Harvatine gave a presentation on the Real Science Lecture series on April 2nd titled “High Oleic Soybeans, Where Do They Fit Into Dairy Diets?” Access the recording at balchem.com/real science.
Dr. Harvatine gave a presentation on the Real Science Lecture series on April 2nd titled “High Oleic Soybeans, Where Do They Fit Into Dairy Diets?” Access the recording at balchem.com/real science.
As Dr. Harvatine thinks back over his 15 years at Penn State, he didn’t think he’d do much fat supplement work. But we keep getting new questions, new products, and new challenges. One of these is high oleic soybeans, which could be an opportunity to grow some of our own fat on the farm. (6:35)
High oleic soybeans have been around for about seven years or a little longer. They were developed for fry oil (french fries and potato chips), but dairy nutritionists were interested in the opportunity to use 18:1 fats because of their lower risk of milk fat depression. (7:36)
Dr. Davis indicates that high oleic soybeans are a growing piece of the soybeans planted yearly. Seedstock availability is limited, but many companies have it in their pipeline. Pest and weed control traits will eventually be baked into the seedstock, but growers are taking a risk by choosing to grow high oleic soybeans. Dr. Davis’s company offers a premium for high oleic soybeans at their plants to encourage growers to take those risks. (13:15)
What factors should a producer or a nutritionist consider when using high oleic soybeans? Dr. Harvatine sees a couple of different ways folks are feeding soybeans. One, is using expeller soybean meal or roasted soybeans as a RUP source while accounting for the additional fat that it provides, and the other would be pulling the dry fat supplement out of the ration and feeding high levels of roasted soybeans to replace it. He has some hesitations about the latter approach and reminds the audience that high oleic soybeans are not at zero risk for milk-fat depression. Dr. Davis adds that a major consideration is economics. The market has been extremely volatile lately, with very high oil prices, recently, followed by a decline over the last year. As renewable diesel becomes more common and more crush plants come online, we could see depressed meal prices as well. (16:14)
Do we know what amount of oleic acid to be feeding? Dr. Harvatine shares that Dr. Andres Contreras at the Michigan State Vet School has seen molecular changes in adipose tissue metabolism with 50 grams per day of abomasally infused oleic acid, so it seems to be bioactive at reasonably low levels. The challenge, however, is we’re not sure how much actually gets through the rumen from different feed sources. In addition, there may be some interaction between fatty acids and the type of fiber on NDF digestibility that needs to be investigated. (26:50)
A concern with roasted beans compared to extruded products is the potential for higher variability with roasted beans. Dr. Davis gives some examples of considerations dairy farmers need to consider when roasting beans on-farm. (37:16)
Dr. Harvatine and Dr. Davis discuss how dairy producers may be able to take advantage of market volatility and be opportunistic in different settings regarding growing and feeding high oleic soybeans. Both guests agree that soybeans should be used in diets for all their nutrients, protein, RUP, and fat. They caution against pulling it into diets just as a fat supplement and not assessing what it’s doing for the protein side. (43:30)
We've seen a rapid increase in milk fat percentage in the US milk supply over the last few years. Why? Dr. Harvatine points out rapid genetic improvement, a better understanding of mitigating diet-induced milk fat depression, and better use of forages and fiber digestibility. Certainly, palm fat has helped, but it does not explain all of it. Dr. Davis adds that not only have genetics improved, but we have improved nutrition programs to support that genetic potential. (52:14)
In summary, Dr. Davis advises nutritionists and dairy producers to stay flexible as we’re still early on in the high oleic arena. Dr. Harvatine agrees there are great opportunities and lots of decisions to be made for each individual farm. Don’t forget the fundamentals of nutrition when considering this - view high oleic soybeans as a complete package, keeping in mind not only the protein, RUP, and fat but also quality control and roasting. (58:55)
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Scott (00:00:07):
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 the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell. I'll be one of your hosts tonight here at Real Science Exchange. And tonight we welcome Dr. Kevin Harin to dive into the dynamic world of feeding fat and high oleic soybeans. Dr. Harin gave a presentation on the Real Science Lecture series back on April 2nd, and the title of that presentation was High Oleic Soybeans, Where Do They Fit Into Dairy Diets? If you've missed it, you're gonna want to go back and listen to this one. Listen to the recording, which you can access at alchem.com/real science. Now, Kevin, I re-listened to the webinar again this morning, and it's certainly action packed. I feel like you packed a semester full of lectures into a 1, 45 minute presentation.
Scott (00:01:02):
So there was a lot covered, and, and I'm kind of curious, how many credit hours do I get for this
Kevin (00:01:45):
Yeah, so I, there is, there is coffee in, in my cup this morning, but if, if I was actually am an a hard cider drinker, I'd be, joining Clay and having, having All right, Kevin. That's great. Yeah,and, and thank you for having me back here. I, I always enjoy having these conversations and being part of your podcast.
Scott (00:02:09):
Oh, well, thank you very much. Now I see Kevin, you've brought a guest with you. Would you mind introducing your guest and, and why did you pick him?
Kevin (00:02:16):
Yeah, so Lynn Davis has, has joined us and I, I'm really glad he is able to, to do that and agreed to do it. I really think he has the, the best perspective on this. So Lynn will have to, to correct me on his, his background if I get anything wrong here, but he is a PhD in Dairy Nutrition and was a, I believe, a founding partner of the Nutritional Professionals Group. And then he started quality Roasting, which is a soybean processor. And then it's also involved in dairy group that so Breeze Dairy and the Heifer Authority, so has hands-on experience all the way down to the cow level. So I really think he has that best perspective, that he is a nutritionist, he's balancing diets. He knows what we deal with and the decisions we have to make there. And he sees us both from the soybean processor and the market side and, you know, what makes the dollar and cents work for, for cows on the farm. So I hopefully I didn't get any of that, that wrong, Lynn.
Scott (00:03:19):
Yeah, Lynn, you wanna correct anything there?
Lynn (00:03:22):
No thank, thank you so much, Kevin. And, and thank you Balchem. I'm honored to participate here today in this podcast. And hopefully can shed some light on some of the application of, of the research that has been conducted by Dr. Ine and others with high oleic soybeans and, and also anything else in, in, in that soybean or dairy nutrition space.
Scott (00:03:49):
All right. Very well. Well, we're glad to have you today. I'm gonna ask you the same question. Ask Kevin if you did have something in your glass, what would it be?
Lynn (00:03:58):
Yeah, you know, so I live in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is there are quite a few beer drinkers here, I believe. And the craft beer brewing industry is really taken off. So right now I have coffee in my cup, but this evening there may be a craft beer in my future.
Scott (00:04:15):
Oh, excellent. And we don't wanna forget my trustee, co-host Dr. Clay Zimmerman. Clay, good to see you again. And we, we know what you'd be drinking tonight if you were, or this morning.
Clay (00:04:30):
That’s right. That's right. I'd be joining Kevin.
Scott (00:04:32):
Yeah,
Clay (00:04:33):
With a hard cider. How, how about you, Scott? What would be in your glass?
Scott (00:04:37):
Well, so yeah, it would be a bourbon usually, right? And it would be, I try to find different ones, but I don't have anything different. I do have a, a, a blade in bow, which I've been working on here for a couple days, so it's, it's pretty good. Had that at the dairy Challenge last year in Saratoga, and I was lucky to run across a bottle the other day, so I picked it up. So I would say that even though we don't have anything in the glasses night, let, let's raise our glasses to the dairy industry. Cheers, everyone. Cheer
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Scott (00:06:20):
So Kevin, I'm gonna jump right in. As you mentioned, as we mentioned before, you presented a webinar in early April. And would you mind kind of giving us just a brief overview of what that presentation was about?
Kevin (00:06:35):
Yeah, so what's kind of interesting is well, I I kind of think back over my, my research career here. You know, when I started at Penn State 15 years ago, I didn't think we were gonna be doing much fat supplement work. I, I thought we knew everything we needed to know, and it was all, all settled business, right? And now we keep getting new questions and new products and new challenges. So we, you know, since then have gone through Palm coming onto the market and learned a lot about feeding palmitic acid supplements. And then, you know, that got very expensive during the pandemic and has supply chain issues. And now we have this new opportunity with high oleic soybeans. It is kind of unique that I see it as an opportunity for homegrown fat, right? So we quite often have talked about homegrown forages and homegrown protein, but now we have the, the opportunity to actually be growing some of our own fat on, on the farm.
Kevin (00:07:36):
So it's interesting, oleic soybeans have been around for you know, probably, what about seven years or maybe a little bit longer. They really had a bit of a, a slow start. They're developed for the basically fry life for, for McDonald's and Burger King and, and Lay's potato chips. But when they came onto the marketed, a bunch of us in the dairy nutrition side said, geez, these would be an opportunity. 'cause We know that 18 ones a lower risk for milk fat depression. So has to be over the past 18 months. The number one question I get from the field is, is what about high oleic soybeans? And how do I take advantage of these? So there's been lots of interest recently and it's really a, a nice opportunity for us to have another source of fat that is not, not, it's not zero risk for milk fat depression, but it's lower risk for milk fat depression. So that, that's kind of the package that we have is another source, another opportunity in it's lower, lower risk for milk fat depression.
Scott (00:08:42):
You talk about a recent interest by nutritionist, and that was certainly reflected in the numbers of people that we had attending your your webinar. I, I'm just kind of curious. So it's been around seven years, but it's just the last 18 months where there's been an interest. Do you have any idea what's caused that?
Kevin (00:09:00):
Yeah, it, it's, it's always interesting how the kind of, I guess, marketing and, and how those things happen. Part of it is that it, it's difficult for these things to grow. So to begin with, they were under pretty tight control until it got approval in key export countries. So at one point it could only be grown if it was under contract to go directly into a, a crush plant. So, so part of that was availability that loosened up a number of years ago. And then I think it's just a matter of, of people kind of becoming comfortable with it and getting some experience. And then I think the high fat of our, our fat supplements during the pandemic really kind of put a lot of incentive into looking for some other opportunities also.
Scott (00:09:55):
Now, you had said that these are becoming popular in human nutrition. How popular is it, I guess I, I'm wondering, and then how available are these today to the dairy farmer?
Kevin (00:10:08):
Yeah, and Lynn probably will have some, some better idea of this from the business side. I, I think there's also been kind, maybe call it some growing pains also on the industrial side and the human food side. And I think that's a little bit, part, part of this is United Soybean Board and some of the state soybean boards have put some of their funds into developing the dairy market. So I know we've had funding both from Pennsylvania Soybean Board and United Soybean Board to look at how to use these in dairy cows. And part of that is they're looking to create some demand while some of that food service and industrial processing got to switch over into, into it. But Lynn, you probably have better, better insight into those dynamics.
Lynn (00:11:06):
Well there's certainly an interest on both sides. Kevin you know, from the dairy nutritionist standpoint and dairy producers reducing the, the risk of, of milk fat depression with high oleic soy feeding is, is is quite prominent right now. We have, we're getting lots of, of interest at, at our plants from nutritionists and, and dairy farmers who would like to purchase the product or would like to have product that they grow processed. Also from the refining aspect of it, we, we do refine oil and the food industry is really interested in this high ole oil for the reason that you mentioned earlier, Kevin, the, the shelf life in fryers, the health aspect of it coronary artery disease reduction, et cetera, from oleic acid versus other fatty acids. So we think that this is something that's really gonna take off.
Scott (00:12:09):
How do we see this playing out long term? Do we see the high oleic beans kind of displacing the, the current beans? Or do we see room for both, or maybe even three or four down the road as we learn about the different fatty acids in the role they play in nutrition?
Kevin (00:12:24):
Yeah, I, I, I'll, I'll start with an answer. They, they, just thinking back when high oleic soybeans first came outta the market, I saw some really kind of big expectations for 'em. And there were some people actually proposing that they're going to be, you know, 90% of our market in a decade, right? And we're almost the decade out in, in their growing niche, but they're, they're, they're still still a niche. So it, I I, I think they're gonna continue to go, Lynn's probably gonna have better, better idea on how the industry looks at, especially from the biofuel side. 'cause That's gonna be a growing part of our soybean oil use.
Clay (00:13:05):
So, so what, what percent of the US soy crop is high oleic beans right now?
Lynn (00:13:15):
I, I really don't have a feel for that clay. I, I, I think it's, it's a growing piece. You know, even the seed stock availability, there are only a couple of companies that, that are offering high ole soybean seed, but many companies have it in the pipeline. And I believe some of the, the, the traits that growers look for regarding weed control and pesticide control, those traits will eventually be baked into the, the seed stock, which is going to be more attractive going forward right now to encourage growers to grow high oleic soybeans. Our processing plants are offering a premium to, to those growers to reduce some of the risk that they're taking. This year for 2024, we're actually offering a dollar and a half a bushel premium for high oleic soybeans compared to conventional soybeans. Now, as we go forward, and people become more comfortable with that, and some of these traits that I mentioned earlier are baked into the high oleic soybeans that that premium is probably going to decline, hopefully will the decline. But that's, that's what it takes right now to get some of our growers in this part of the world, Wisconsin and Michigan, to take that risk of growing the high oleic soybeans.
Kevin (00:14:38):
Yeah. And just just to expound a little bit on, on that seed side. So, so there is A GMO and my, my understanding, some of the holdup there has been for EU plen is approved and the agronomic herbicide traits are approved, but then when they double stack those, they have to go through an another approval process. So that, that's really been a barrier for getting those stacked traits. And, but there is a non GMO version soic and, and that I, I'm told, is going to have a faster process because all of those approved herbicide traits, they can, they can go in and create those, but, but there's gonna be a lag to, to doing that. But there's certainly more seed options today than what there was. But that's been a big, a big holdup on the agronomy side. And just to mention, so like from from the soybean grower side, they've been really looking at this as an opportunity for a premium on, on the dairy side, we we're, we're paying that premium now for that, but at some point, like commodities do, once it hits a certain percent of the market, it that, that premium will diminish, would I would expect, which is gonna be good for us, but not good for the soybean growers. Yep.
Scott (00:16:03):
Kevin, I'm kind of curious what factors should a, a producer or a nutritionist consider when deciding using high oleic soybeans?
Kevin (00:16:14):
Yeah, so what's interesting here, just to comment on, I, I, I kind sometimes we, we see things that pendulum swings, right? And it's interesting that I hear a lot of people going to pretty extreme feeding levels with, with high oleic soybeans. So I think there's a couple different ways you can look at at feeding soybeans, and it's gonna be different for each producer, depending on if they're growing these beans and what their opportunity is for selling them versus growing other, other crops versus if they're, they're buying the beans. So you know, I, I've always liked using both expeller soybean meal and roasted soybeans is an RUP source. When you're doing that, you're bringing in some fat, and we can value that fat and I think we know how to value that fat better now than what we used to.
Kevin (00:17:14):
And then the other way that I hear people doing is saying they wanna pull their dry fat supplement out, and they're going to be feeding quite high levels of roasted beans trying to replace that pound of, of dry fat supplement. And, and my, my hesitation there is that I, I think some people think IC soybeans are zero risk for milk fat depression. They're not zero, they're a lot lower than conventional soybeans, but they're not zero. And I, I just warn people a little bit to, to be a little bit careful that they, they could go too, too far. Your thoughts there, Lynn?
Lynn (00:17:51):
Yeah. So, you know, one of the, the considerations here as nutritionists and, and dairy farmers look toward this is, is just really the economics. And historically about half of the value of the, the soybean comes from the oil that it contains. And the other half comes from the, the, the protein or the meal fraction of, of that product. And the, the market has been extremely volatile. Here lately, we've seen really high oil prices. And recently, over the last year or thereabouts, the, the oil prices have declined. Some of that's been brought on by a huge amount of, of used cooking oil from China coming into the us. And you know, that, that used cooking oil. I read an article that Bloomberg published here on Tuesday, and they said that the amount of used cooking oil coming entering the US market from China represents about 6% of the total soybean oil that we would grow in the us.
Lynn (00:18:57):
So un until that's consumed, we're probably going to continue to see oil prices somewhat depressed compared to where they historically have been. But as renewable energy or renewable diesel becomes more prominent and in there are crush plants that are being set up to, to take advantage of that right now across the, especially in the Midwest here that is going to fulfill that requirement for renewable diesel, but it's also going to put a lot of meal on the market. And that meal is probably going to, we're probably gonna see a depressed meal price, soy soybean meal price as a result of that. And from our perspective, at quality roasting, we price the expelled version of soybean meal off from the CME soybean meal market. And so when, when that price of soybean meal declines and the oil price is real high, the whole bean or roasted bean is probably going to to be a fairly expensive feed ingredient in, in the dairy arena compared to to meal. So that's going to be a consideration that nutritionist and economists will need to look at going forward.
Clay (00:20:21):
So, so led looking out in the future. So what kind of timeframe do you think that that will occur?
Lynn (00:20:29):
Yeah, so, so the, the Bloomberg article that I'm referenced here, that was published on on Tuesday, said that the supply of used cooking oil that was imported to the US from China will last six months to one year. So we'll probably see oil prices continue to be you know, a, a a, a pretty good value, a pretty good a lower number until that is used up. And then there's also concern about the quality of that used cooking oil from China. I know there's some investigative work being done on that right now. The year the EU claims that the biodiesel production from that used cooking oil has been problematic. So that needs to be farted out as well.
Kevin (00:21:21):
Yeah.
Scott (00:21:21):
Do we know what the dynamics are behind that? Where'd it come from? Are they not feeding it to their own livestock over there? Or why are we getting this all of a sudden?
Lynn (00:21:29):
Yeah that's, that, that, that's a really good question, Scott. I guess there's quite a glut of it in China. And there's, there's a lot of questions about the quality of it and, and how did, why did it end up here is, is is still needs to be sorted out.
Kevin (00:21:48):
It, it, it's probably good to back up a little bit that that's, some folks might not. Well, you prob prob people probably hear piece bits and pieces of this, but there's been so many dynamics here starting with the, I'm gonna get the wording wrong, but the renewable fuel biodiesel credits that have come on both, what is it, Washington and California and the, the federal credits that, my understanding is that's really incentivized a lot of our tallow to go into biofuel manufacturing. And at the same time has created a lot of interest in building soybean crush plants. So, so I've heard analogies that if we think back to when we build all, all the ethanol distillery capacity, people have said, basically, we're going into a phase where we're going to be kind of the equivalent in soybean crush capacity. And, and I think Lin was come coming and what, that's gonna really change the price of things. But I, I guess I, I was interested in your view of, of that, the influence of those factors.
Lynn (00:23:04):
Yeah. right now it would be hard for me as a consulting nutritionist to make a, a long-term to advise a dairy customer to make a long-term commitment to, to any way of, like on-farm processing. There's a lot of interest out there right now for roasting soybeans especially at, at, at, at the farm level and, and feeding them directly to the cows and, and current, the current economics really favor that. It, it looks quite attractive. And, and so there are some, some producers that have already made that investment. Kevin and I, I assume you're probably seeing that in Pennsylvania as well. My concern is, is the long-term viability of that all the way from a market change low soybean meal price, high oil price, high soybean price as a result of that. And, and also then the volatility with that investment that's made, maybe it's not necessarily in the best interest going forward to see until we see how this all settles out.
Kevin (00:24:15):
Yeah, I I always say my, my crystal ball is always cloudy, so I'm not gonna give any recommendations there. Yeah, yeah. The, the other thing I wanted to bring up, so, so I, I think when we look at, let's say like programs like sesame I, I really like that approach to, to valuing different feeds in, and it's built that it really looks at protein RUP value, energy value, right? So I, so I think that's costly how we've looked at the value of a feed stuff. But like within sesame, it's not putting a value on that fatty acid as, as a nutrient. And, and I think that might be the la the other thing that's changed in the last couple years is we're, we, we're not just looking at fat as a nutrient, but all, or sorry, fat is energy, but fat is a nutrient that the cow needs to help support milk fat production. So it's interesting to think like your, your expeller soybean meal, we've always put a premium on that from the RUP in the consistency perspective. But there's a reasonable amount of fat that that's bringing in also that we probably should be valuing. Any, any thoughts there, Lynn?
Lynn (00:25:30):
Yeah. to totally agree with that. You know, you, you look at feeding a whole soybean either raw or roasted and the, the amount of fat that that pulls into the diet and also maybe not having quite the I shouldn't say maybe it doesn't have the, the level of undergrad ability of the protein that an, an expelled product would have. So feeding rates economics clearly would dictate how that might be used processing as well grinding before it's, it's fed the e expel product has about one third of the oil remaining in it. So one of the questions that I get I guess we have Kevin, is from the, from a scientific standpoint, do we really know what amount of oleic acid we should be feeding, and do we need to do some, some dose titration studies there to, to, to, to, to ferret all of that out? Especially as we compare those two different products expelled with a lower fat content, are we going to get the same bang in the diet as we would from, from a roasted soybean?
Kevin (00:26:50):
Yeah. And that, that's a great question. So, so if we just step back, like you, you had mentioned oleic acid in, in heart health. In, in that, where that comes from, I think at the core in human side is olive oil is part of that Mediterranean diet, which is, is, you know, probably the, has the best support for being a, a healthy diet on the human side, right? So we have, we have a, a good connotation on the, on the human side, but on the cow side, there's some recent data that's really interesting. So Andreas Contreras at MSU Vet School, it's been showing, I think it's 50 grams per day that he, Abba macally infuses in transition cows can actually see molecular changes in adipose tissue metabolism. So, so it does seem like it's, it's bioactive at pretty reasonably low levels. Where, where I get a little bit into having a hard time figuring out how to draw conclusions from most of our cow data is we're not sure how much actually gets through the rumen in these different sources.
Kevin (00:28:00):
So if we think about like our traditional calcium salts, poly fatty acid distillate, there's a lot of oleic acid there. And, and, you know, you, you can pick your bypass escape value for, for that you know, it's not a hundred percent, it's not, not zero, but same thing for on the roasted soybean and expeller, I'm not sure what rumen escape value to put on that oleic acid. So then you're not losing it as a fatty acid, you're just converting it to, to steric acid. So I, I, we're, we're trying to do some more, more work there, but it, it would be nice if we had a couple dozen duodenal flow studies to look at with, with some really good flow data. But that's the, the, the snag is that we're not just looking at oleic, but also steric when we're feeding those. Do do you have a target in mind?
Lynn (00:29:00):
No, I don't. And you know, I'm, I'm somewhat, I, I guess I, I, I'm really interested in, in your comment I know some of the, the published information that, that has come out of your lab. You've raised the question, Kevin, regarding NDF digestibility with, with the, these, the fatty acid load. And, and I think our, our, our listeners and viewers would like to hear a little bit about that, and I believe you've got some more research planned to, to address that. Is that correct?
Kevin (00:29:29):
Yeah, yeah. So in, I, I guess to, to kind of tell the longer part of that story, if we think about when Palmquist created calcium salts of, he was doing that to reduce the effect of fat on fiber digestibility, right? So that was identified as an issue in, in the seventies. And then Lou Armano did a really nice meta-analysis and his meta-analysis from that data, it looked like fatty acids really weren't causing an issue for fiber digestibility till we went to like very crazy levels that researchers do like four, five, 6% oil in the diets, right? But now, recently we have both roasted oleic soybean trial and a cotton seed, whole cotton seed trial where we're going, well, we've gone up to 15% cotton seed and 15% high oleic soybeans. And we, we do see a, a decrease in fiber digestibility in in both of those.
Kevin (00:30:28):
So we're feeding very high forage fiber diets. We have very low non forage fiber. I, I'm, I'm kind of wondering if there's an interaction between fiber, fiber type, and that comes a little bit from on the cotton seed side. I hear California nutritionist feeding very high levels of cotton seed and not having problems, not that they're measuring NDF digestibility, but it seems like it works well, but their diets are very low forge fiber and very high and, and non forge fiber. So I'm curious if there's an interaction there. I I, I, I, I don't see this as a reason to not be products, but I think we would have to be conscious that, that that's a possible trade off.
Clay (00:31:21):
So, so Kevin, in, in those studies that you've been running, going up to 15% cotton seed or, or the high oleic beans, what, what are the, what are the fat levels in those diets then?
Kevin (00:31:34):
I, I would have to, to go back. So our basal diets would be very low fat. We would not be bringing in any other, in any other fat sources. So I mean, it would just be our forages in, in an solvent extracted soybean meal or, or canola meal and, and our basal diets. So then the, the, the, what we're titrating across is just what's coming in from those oil seeds.
Clay (00:31:57):
Okay.
Kevin (00:31:59):
Yeah,
Scott (00:32:01):
Kevin, we're displacing some pufa in the diet. Is there any downsides to that?
Kevin (00:32:06):
Yeah, that's, that's great. Great question too, that and, and I, I remember years ago, actually a human nutritionist that some folks might, might know, Tom Brenna, there's at, at Cornell. He, he early on made the comment that if you look at the human diet 18 three, our essential fatty acid soybean oil is the number one source of that in the human diet. And, and he raised a concern from the human side if you, that, that if we switch to all high oleic that maybe there would be an essential fatty acid concern there on, on the cow, you know, we, we know so little about the essential fatty acids and you know, we're not getting much through from these products to begin with. Now how much is needed is, is always the question there, but I, I don't have an answer for that. But that, that is a possible downside that, that you know, there is what about 8% 18 three in, in normal soybean oil, so you'd, you'd be losing some of that. Mm-Hmm.
Scott (00:33:19):
On the other hand, there may be benefits to reducing the amount of 18 two in the diet, perhaps.
Kevin (00:33:26):
Yeah.
Clay (00:33:28):
So I, I know there's a lot of interest in this topic of high oleic beans. Any, any feel for the prevalence of how much is being used in, in dairy diets?
Lynn (00:33:43):
In, in Wisconsin it's, it, it, it's really insignificant the amount that's, that's being used here. But, but we've been a bit slow to adopt Ohio oleic soybeans within this state. Comparatively speaking in Michigan, I think they're ahead of us. They, the, the growers seem to be more knowledgeable about it. When we looked at just the acres that were contracted based on our offers from our crush plant in, in Michigan compared to our crushed plants in Wisconsin, a whole lot more acres there. And, and possibly some of the credit is there is due to Dr. Adam Locke and his efforts at, at Michigan State University, I believe that that ward has gotten out more so than maybe it has in, in Wisconsin. So I definitely see a difference there to, to answer your question. And it's definitely going to increase especially this year. We've got quite a few acres in Michigan and, and some acres in Wisconsin. There are some efforts being made by surrounding states. I believe the Indiana Soy Alliance re has reported quite a few acres of high oleic soybeans there as well. They have high oleic soybeans available for, for purchase from from Indiana.
Kevin (00:35:07):
There's a lot of farms feeding nothing, and then there's some farms feeding, feeding a, a whole lot. Yeah. Right.
Scott (00:35:13):
Yeah. Lynn, I'm curious, so those acres that, that are in production, are those acres owned by the dairy farmers themselves, or are they contracting with neighbors, others?
Lynn (00:35:26):
Yeah. you know, good, good question, Scott. You know, we talk about that quite a bit. It, it, you know, that that's another consideration when, when you look at high oleic soybeans is, is land utilization. You know, our, our dairies, especially as they've, they've grown and gotten larger they, their number one goal is to produce forage for their, their herds. And in, in many instances, they don't have additional acres available to produce concentrates corn grain or, or soybeans. So they have to, they purchase that end of it. And then there's, there are other farms that have excess acres and, and maybe they're very interested in growing some high oleic soybeans on, on those extra acres that they have. So it's a farm by farm situation. But I would, I would say size of the farm typically dictates that as the farm, as the dairies get larger, the what I say, the, the opportunity to have additional acres is, is somewhat limited.
Kevin (00:36:33):
The, the one thing I think is kind of neat about, about this, I, I know we have a growing number of plants that are contracting for 'em, but there, there's some farms that are so far away from those plants that, that the dairy business actually creates an opportunity for, for them, right? Mm-Hmm.
Lynn (00:37:13):
Excellent point, Kevin. Very true.
Kevin (00:37:16):
The, the other thing I wanted to bring up that I, I think Lynn will have some, some insight on is I, so in Pennsylvania, we've, we've fed roasted beans quite a bit over time, and we have a, a reasonable number of mobile roasters that, that go around other parts of the country, I think that had been lost more. And now I hear a lot about how do you roast beans and concerns about the, the consistency on the roasting side. And it, and to me that would be a big difference between the expeller and our roasted bean opportunity, right? To me, expeller is a, a very consistent product. So any any comments on that?
Lynn (00:38:00):
Yeah, good. Excellent point. When, when we first started processing soybeans at quality roasting in 1991, we were just roast roasting beans. And worked a lot back then with Dr. Larry Satter from USDA Forage research center. He was very helpful in, in quality control of that process. And it's, it's fairly complicated all the way from, from roasting to steeping to conditioning getting the proper amount of heat to try to optimize the und degradability of the protein, but not getting it overcooked to the point of destroying the, the integrity of that protein. So, th those are concerns at the farm gate. You know, not to say that it can't happen, but the portable roasting approach you know, maybe, maybe if, if it's set up properly, can can it get that accomplished? And also the, the on-farm approach can get it accomplished, but there are so many pitfalls that, that are associated with that.
Lynn (00:39:09):
You know, our dairy industry and our dairy producers are really good at taking care of dairy cows and animal husbandry pieces. But when you, when you start getting into grain processing it, it, it takes a full-time focus on, on that to get the job done correctly. So back to what I had commented earlier, that this is, you know, a consideration that a dairy producer, if they have the excess acres or have availability of, of high oleic soybeans that they can purchase at, at a respectable price they, they also need to give some really long term or some intense thought into how they're gonna do that and make sure it gets done right. We've seen some, some miserable and terrible outcomes from that all the way or in our early stages we had the fire department on a quick dial on our, on our cell phones because it's, it's problematic. Those hulls come off the beans and when they're hot, they catch on fire. And you know, it's I think we've figured it out, but we had a couple of setbacks early, early on in the whole roasting process.
Kevin (00:40:25):
And what's, what's your favorite particle size? So I, I, I hear I, more and more people are grinding these, right? Yeah. And, and based on the old Wisconsin data, I, I always like recommending, you know, halves, quarters, and halves type spot.
Lynn (00:40:42):
Good, good. Really good question. And you know, we, the, in our roasting process we do grind the soybeans crack them basically into quarters, Kevin that that's the way that we would send roasted soybeans out from our plants to feed dealers in a, in a quarter. I, I'm a little bit concerned about getting a, a, a finer particle there all the way from the protein und degradability or, or exposure in the rumen and, and trying to help protect some of that enhance some of the bypass piece by having a little larger particle size and also the, the, the fat in the soil. We've always been a little bit concerned about having that too, too fine and exposing more fat to, to room and fermentation.
Kevin (00:41:34):
Yeah. So like, if we contrast with cotton seed, like I, well, I also like to contrast the distiller grains versus cotton seed distiller grains. The fat's basically dumped back onto it from the solubles versus cotton seed. It's locked in within that seed coat, right? In that slows the release in the rumen. So, so I know the high oleic beans, it's lower risk, but I still like to kind of slow that a a little bit in the rumen. But on the other side, what I hear more discussions on too is people are going to higher feeding rates. What, what's actually happening is they're not looking for the extra RUP. So then I, I think they're looking, saying, if I can grind more, I'm in balancing out that RDP or even Hey, any thoughts on raw beans?
Lynn (00:42:25):
Yeah. You know, and in, in my consulting career as a consulting dairy nutritionist fed a lot of raw soybeans. You know probably, you know, from a, a standpoint of, of urease activity, you have to consider the presence of urea and the diet. And that, that combination is an, is probably not real, real great. I think the rumen does a pretty good job of destroying the trypsin inhibitors, so we don't worry about that. And you know, I've all, I've said all along that in fact our, one of our crush plants in in Michigan is located real near a solvent. So when we first built, you know, there was some, there, there was some thoughts by the solvent soy plant owner that, oh, there's competition coming into the, the, the marketplace. And I, I was like, no, we're, we're not in competition at all with you. Both ingredients need to be included in the diet. We need degradable protein as well as un degradable protein. And the combination of, of the two work very well together from a nutrition standpoint.
Kevin (00:43:30):
Yeah. And, and that's actually why, why I was just thinking of that I think relates to that is to, to me, the, the, so, okay, if you have your own beans and you think they're very cheap you're kind of devaluing them, grinding 'em and, and using 'em for RDP versus that opportunity cost. And, and if the premium is there for high oleic soybeans, and if there's value in the market, which I, I think there's going to be, I, I worry that people are losing sight of that opportunity cost.
Lynn (00:44:06):
Can't agree more with that statement, Kevin. That's why being flexible from the standpoint of, of a dairy producer growing soybeans and, and maybe one year they would sell those high oleic soybeans and the next year would consider processing and feeding them and, and, and making the big investment to do that continually on the farm. I, I would have to question that right now. Because at some point in the future, if the oil price goes way up there may be a better alternative to sell the beans and buy something else back.
Kevin (00:44:44):
Yeah. I I think we can kind of, I be a little bit opportunistic in the market that way, that my, my understanding is the premiums on the high oleic have kind of gone up and down at least in different regions. And I think part of that is like if you have a big player, I, well, I, I remember many years ago when they were mo moving out of partially ian vegetable oil, like Burger King switched to a low a LA soybean oil, but McDonald's couldn't because they just couldn't buy enough oil to switch every McDonald's, right? Mm-Hmm.
Lynn (00:45:33):
I, you know, it, we're real early on here in, in Wisconsin and Michigan with this whole concept, but that's, that's really the way I see it playing out. We, we studied the market at quality roasting for a period of time before we, we set a premium for 2024 at a dollar and a half a bushel you know, and, and then talking to nutritionists and you say, well, what does that dollar and a half premium really end up costing at the farm gate? You know? And, and so that really, that that's, that's adding 40 to $50 per ton of end product cost for that meal, for that expelled meal, which in, in, for some nutritionists that that's, that price makes them uncomfortable. So that, that is, is a, a factor to consider as well.
Kevin (00:46:24):
Yeah, just, just the one, one thing I remind, just remembered, we talked about the bioactivity. The one thing we didn't mention is the digestibility side. And a Adam Locke has some nice work showing al Macal infusion of oleic acid increases fatty acid digestibility. And we, we have some work also where when we increase oleic acid and fatty acid peril, we improve if fatty acid digestibility. So I, it just, just hit me that I didn't, we didn't mention that as a, you know, there's lower milk fat depression side, but then there's that digestibility potential
Clay (00:47:02):
And that, so Kevin, that's the, that's the emulsifier effect.
Kevin (00:47:07):
That's, yeah, that's, that's what we, what we think is that oleic acid is a little bit unique from the other fatty acids that has some natural emulsifier properties. Yep.
Clay (00:47:20):
So are, when you're feeding the high oleic beans, are there any other nutritional considerations you should take into account?
Kevin (00:47:30):
So I, I guess I would just start that. I I like looking at soybeans as a whole package and putting in the diet for all of the nutrients that it has, that you're feeding it for the, the, the protein and the RUP and the the fat. And, and I get a little bit worried when somebody's pulling it in the diet just as a replacement for, for their fat supplement and not, not valuing or not keeping an eye on what it's doing for, for the protein side. And I know we've been this period of lower milk protein values, but there's still money to be made on, on milk protein. How about you, Lynn?
Lynn (00:48:13):
Yeah. Can, can't agree more. You know, back to what I'd said about a properly balanced diet considering und degradable protein and degradable protein and, and, and fat sources, it's a complete package. We just, we can't just look at it as one or the other. We have to look at it as, as a, a package.
Clay (00:48:35):
Kevin, I was really intrigued during your, the real, your real science lecture, you were talking about, have we gone too far with the lower fat diets and are we underfeeding fatty acids to these cows? You wanna, you wanna expound on that a little bit more?
Kevin (00:48:53):
Yeah, and it to, to me, I, I think part of this is you know, so when we, when we figured out bio hydrogenation induced milk fat depression, and the issue that 18 two caused for that, and really at the same time had all this really high fat distiller grains, people I think got scared of, of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the diet and started dropping down dietary fat is just a way to reduce their risk for milk fat depression. But then you have to think about 55% of the fat that cow's making is coming from preformed fatty acids. You know, how do we, how do we support her in in that? And it's really clear relationship there is, you feed preformed fatty acids, cows will take that up and use it for milk fat and a lot of the time she will simply decrease de novo those fatty acids she's making from scratch.
Kevin (00:49:52):
So you don't end up with a change in, in milk fat or much of a change, right? And I, I always call that the, the mamre gland being lazy. And I was talking to somebody after my presentation, I said, you know, I should stop saying that. I should say the mamre gland is smart because it is energetically smart, right? And, and I I guess you could say sometimes if be being lazy, if you can get things done a simpler way, that's, that is being, being smart, right? So it, it is that that offset The problem is that the mammary gland can only offset so far. So I think at some point we start losing some milk fat yield from going to too low a dietary fat. Now, where that is, I, I, I'm not, I'm not sure, and I think there's probably a lot of other interacting factors in, in the diet, but Lynn Lin's balanced a lot more diets than I, I have,
Lynn (00:50:54):
I'll share this comment. You know, the, back to your point, Kevin, about and, and clay, about polyunsaturates in, in the diet, of course this, this is, we're just putting our toe in the water with a high ole processing here this year. We've processed a small amount in 2023, but 2024 we'll process a lot. But if you talk to our sales team who market the expelled soy product Acceler Pro to the feed industry, they would tell you that sales decline in the summertime, and it's natural for, for dairy cows to, during hot weather to produce a little less milk fat. And yet nutritionists react to that by reducing the polyunsaturated load in the diet. And since the expelled soy contains that they start reducing their feeding rates during the summertime, just trying to react to that, that lower milk fat production. So our sales team is really excited about the high lake piece there and, and hopefully that doesn't cause them to redu to lose sales during the summer months or the hot weather months.
Clay (00:52:14):
So, Kevin, I, I think a question came up about this during the lecture as well, but I, but I'm curious, obviously we've seen a very rapid increase in, in milk fat percent in the in the US milk supply over the last few years. How much of that's due to palm fat feeding? And a lot of it's genetics you were hitting on that, but Yeah, I, I'm curious what you think all the influences are there, and obviously it doesn't hurt right now that that milk fat is a huge premium right now.
Kevin (00:52:54):
Yeah. I'm
Clay (00:52:54):
Sure it's driving some of this, some of this, but that, that hasn't been for that long though, in the scheme of things.
Kevin (00:53:01):
Yeah, so I, I, I think probably the right answer is all of the above, right?
Kevin (00:53:58):
I, I don't, I haven't seen the number on total tons of palm fat import, but that's one we could actually quantify based on research data and number of cows. You, you, you could work out the math there just, just from talking with folks, I think when we had supply chain issues that got pulled back, but I don't see a blip on, on our pattern there. So it's contributing, but I i, it can't, it can't be explaining all of it. Right. What I think's really interesting is, I hear a lot from the field this spring that New York and Ontario and I think into Upper Midwest have been seeing an even higher levels of milk fat off of that linear increase or even up e even more. Right? And I wonder if some of that might be the best, the best I've heard is that there might be some differences in corn grain this year that might be leading into that. And there's just a slide I saw from rock River Labs that corn grain on whole is averaging like two points higher in starch this year than, than other years. But I, I really wanna hear what Lynn thinks explains all of this.
Lynn (00:55:22):
Well, I have never seen anything like it. I have never in my career, I have never seen milk fat from Holstein cows at levels that, that we have today. And I, I really wonder sometimes I ask myself, what, what was I doing wrong for the first, first three decades of my career? And suddenly now, now we're seeing the new norm for, for a Holstein at, you know, even really excellent levels of production. A hundred pounds per cow is, is 4, 3, 4, 4, 4 5% milk fat. It's just amazing. And, and yeah, I, you know our scientific community, Kevin, and and others have really helped us define, define this, but it, it, it actually must go beyond it. And it's, you know, the first year that we observed an increase, you know, we were asking questions about forages, what was different about the growing season, but now this has been sustained over a few years. And i I, I truly believe that the genetics have improved, but also nutritionally we figured out how to support the genetic potential of that dairy cow as well.
Kevin (00:56:34):
Yeah. We, we certainly have to keep up to that genetic potential, right? And, you know, just, just my influence from Bauman, we, we always say we can't push a cow beyond her potential, but, but we certainly can hold her back. I, I, I think as nutritionists and farmers managing those cows, we're, we're all doing our jobs. Well,
Lynn (00:56:55):
The, the energetics of, of supporting that amount of, of those pounds of milk fat that these, these cows are producing. And, and back to what you had stated earlier about maybe we're underfeeding fat, I, I truly believe that we are in, in, in, in some dairies so we, we, we need to tools more tools in our box and the the high ole tool is, is a good one.
Kevin (00:57:22):
Yeah. Yeah. Def definitely agree. I high ole is great opportunity for, for a lot of farms,
Scott (00:57:33):
And that sounds like a natural stopping point. Gentlemen, this has been a great conversation. But you may have noticed they flickered the lights, which means it is last call. And so with that, why don't we just take a step back and everybody kind of give us one key takeaway for the, the audience from today's conversation. And clay, I'd like to start with you, sir.
Speaker 5 (00:57:56):
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Clay (00:58:20):
Well, I, I actually think Lynn summed it up really well just a few seconds ago that the I, I think the high oleic beans are, are another good tool in the toolbox here for nutritionists. So there's growing interest in this and I'd say stay tuned. We'll it's, it's always, it's always good to have more tools in, in the toolbox.
Scott (00:58:49):
Yes, indeed. Stay tuned. Lynn, anything to add to your last comment?
Lynn (00:58:55):
You know, the only thing I would say is just this, we're early on in, in this whole high oleic arena, and my advice to nutritionists and to dairy producers is to stay flexible.
Scott (00:59:09):
All right. Very well, and Kevin, why don't you put a bow on this for us?
Kevin (00:59:14):
Yeah, I, it, I think definitely great opportunities and, and a lot of decisions for people to, to be making and very different decisions for, for every farm, right? 'cause This isn't, isn't, is not gonna be the same price at the same opportunity every place across, across the country. And I guess my advice would just be don't, don't forget all of the fundamentals that our nutritionists know when they go in to look at this. I really like the idea of looking as a complete package of keeping in mind the protein and the RUP the, the, the fat side, but then also quality control and roasting and in those things are gonna be impact on making it as successful as they can make it.
Scott (01:00:04):
Hmm. Gentlemen, this has been a great conversation. I want to thank you for joining us here at the Real Science Exchange. And to our loyal listeners, thank you for coming along for each episode, sticking with us as we explore more topics. We hope you learned something. We hope you had some fun and we'd hope to see you next time here at the Real Science Exchange, where it's always happy hour and you're always among friends.
Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
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