Episode 43: Feeding hybrid rye to organic growing-finishing pigs.
Hello, and welcome to Minnesota Swine and U podcast series, a University of Minnesota Extension Swine Program. Today's podcast is a research update on feeding hybrid rye to organic growing finishing pigs. My name is Sarah Schieck Boelke, your host, and I'm a Swine extension educator with the University of Minnesota. Joining me today is Gabriela Lima, who is a graduate student pursuing her master's degree in the department of animal science. To get us started today, Gabby, will you tell us about yourself including who did you work with on this project?
Gabriella Lima:Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to share some of the results that we found, going to this project. So as you mentioned, my name is Gabriela Lima. For my master's program, I worked with doctor Lee Johnston.
Gabriella Lima:So doctor Lee was my primary adviser, and then usually, she was my co adviser. And, my master's project focused on feeding organic growing finished pigs with hybrid rye and then looking at how that would affect pig performance, but also carcass traits.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Good. And you recently defended your masters, so congratulations on that.
Gabriella Lima:Thank you.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:So I know that you just briefly told us about your topic, but is there anything more that you would like to share with us regarding your research project and kinda what you will be talking about?
Gabriella Lima:Yeah. I think, as I mentioned, my project was conducted with organic pigs, which is quite unique. I think it's important to mention, that organic pigs is just like a certification, but grazing hybrid rye and feeding to pigs can really be applied, to conventional pigs. And in the literature, actually, most of the projects that I was reading, like the studies that I read, they were actually, actually, conducted in conventional systems. So there is really, like you can really look at this project at okay.
Gabriella Lima:If I'm raising organic pigs, can I feed them with Hyderabad? But then it's also very applicable for conventional systems.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:So before I ask you more, specific questions about how you carried out this project, we should probably take a step back and recognize the funding source for your project. So are you able to share yeah. What was your funding source?
Gabriella Lima:Yes. Absolutely. So our project was actually funded by, USDA, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, specifically their RA, so organic research and extension initiatives.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:So now let's get back into talking about your project. So can you give a a brief introduction to the research and explain why was it a valuable project to do?
Gabriella Lima:Yeah. So looking at why we decided to do this project in the first place. So, basically, in the past 5 years, we see a growing demand for organic products. And organic pork is still, like, a really small part of, pork products that are currently being sold. So, looking at how many pigs were sold in the past 5 years, organic pigs is less than 1%.
Gabriella Lima:But looking at the past 5 years, there's about 44%, increase in growing demand for organic pork. So then one of the reasons why it's not growing more and why people do not have access to organic pork is because of the price. It's quite expensive compared to just conventional pork. So porks that were not raised, organically. So then one of the goals of this project was to look at how can we make more efficient for organic farmers to raise pigs and less expensive.
Gabriella Lima:So then we found this grain hybrid rye, which, has been studied more and more as a replacement for corn. And I can get more in-depth of why, but, basically, it's quite high in metabolizable energy, so it has a lot of the similar energy that corn has. And then it's important for us to before we actually apply this in a really big, system or even for organic farmers, how would that impact performance? So how well will pigs grow with hybridized set of corn?
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Right. You're right. It's always important whenever we feed something to pigs to see how is that gonna affect their production, as well as just also looking at the price of feeding that diet. So how did you go about completing this study?
Gabriella Lima:Yes. So it took us 2 years to complete this study. So I was quite happy when we ended and we got to see the results. It was very exciting. And then, basically, we started September 2022.
Gabriella Lima:So we had 2 groups from September 2022 until, March 2023. And then we went back, with more pigs from, September 2023 until June 2024. So in total, we had 5 groups spread out, during those 2 years. And in total, we had 500 pigs, so a 100 pigs per group.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:So I'm assuming you had some different dietary treatments as you compared or looked at feeding hybrid rye. So do you wanna kind of explain your treatments that you had?
Gabriella Lima:Yes. Absolutely. So we had 2 diets. 1 was a control diet, which was just a corn soybean meal based diet. And for our treatment diet, we call brite diet.
Gabriella Lima:So, basically, what we did, whatever was the amount of corn in that control diet, we replaced at exactly 50% with hydride. So, for example, if we had one diet for phase 1 of, the growing finish period that had 60% corn, then for the rye diet, we had 30% corn and then 30% hybrid rye.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:And did your study also look at, like, not only, like, the growth performance and stuff, but did it also look at carcass characteristics and stuff too? Or is that a different project that's not part of what you're gonna share today?
Gabriella Lima:Yes. No. My project also looked at carcass weight. So dressing percentage, hot carcass weight, back fat, lowing eye area. And then, Megan Kavanagh, which was the graduate student that shared the same project with me, she looked at pork quality.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Okay. So at the end, the 2 of you together had a lot of results to share.
Gabriella Lima:Yes. This was quite like, it was a big project and which was fun because we got to look at different aspects of it, but it still, you know, learn all that had to do with performance, carcass, trades, and poor quality.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:You already told me that you had lots of results. Mhmm. So what what results are you able to share from this research project?
Gabriella Lima:Yes. So starting with pig performance, we found no differences, between pigs that were fed the control diet compared to the right diet. And this is what we were expecting going to this project because in the literature, whenever we replace 50% of corn with hybrid rye, so, basically, the studies that have been conducted looking anywhere from 30 to 70%, they also found no differences between, those two treatments. So we also didn't. So what that means is body weight, average daily gain, so how much weight pigs were gained, average daily phen intake, how much pigs, were eating per day.
Gabriella Lima:That did not change. There was no difference between those two treatments. Now regarding carcass traits, this is where it's a little bit interesting because some of the studies, they do find some differences between pigs that were fed a controlled diet compared to pigs that were fed diets that included, hybrid rye. For our study, we for most carcass traits, we didn't find any differences, but we did find that rye fed pigs, so pigs that had 50% of corn replaced with hybrid rye, they had a smaller loin eye area.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Interesting. So based off of the results that you were able to share with me, what conclusions can be made from this research project?
Gabriella Lima:Yeah. So based on our study, we concluded that pigs that were fed that 50% of corn being replaced with hybrid rye, it did not impact performance and most of the carcass traits, which it's good, because if so if farmers are looking for alternative grains, to replace corn, let's say price of hybrid rye, it's lower than corn, that means that they can feed their pigs and lower the feed cost.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:I think part of your maybe it wasn't part of your study, but also in the larger project, was there also, you wanna say, like, a cropping or an agronomy part of the project? Were there other folks that looked at growing, the hybrid rye?
Gabriella Lima:Yeah. So, like I mentioned, this project was so unique because we're looking at so many aspects of growing hybrid rye. So, like, what is the best way to grow hybrid rye and then what we can use hybrid rye for and for us was to pick pigs and then how would that impact performance, carcass trace, pork quality. So my part is specifically focused on the peak performance part and then for the carcass quality. But Meaghan did look at the pork quality and the economics.
Gabriella Lima:So for her, it was very important to look at, like, what was the yield at different ears and then kinda looking at the cost of growing hybrid rye and then, comparing to the control diet, so the corn soybean meal based diet. But Melissa Wilson, she looked at the manure spec of, growing hybrid rye because in organic production, doesn't matter if it's for pigs. So anything that is organic certified, you cannot have synthetic products like fertilizers. So organic farmers' manure is quite important because it's the only fertilizer that they're allowed to use. So, doctor, Wilson, she was looking at how, like, different types of manure, so solid, liquid, how would that impact hybrile yields?
Gabriella Lima:And then, doctor Joe, he was looking at the life cycle analysis of HybridRite.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Thank you for sharing the larger scope of the project. I know you only focused on, you know, a certain part, so I won't ask you about the results or anything. But thank you for sharing kind of the wider picture. But getting back to the component that you, looked at and the results that you shared, I guess, specific, to to your part of the project, Why are the results you shared important takeaways from this study? Like, what are things that the industry, can learn from?
Gabriella Lima:Yes. Absolutely. So like I said, it's very important for farmers, And it doesn't matter if it's organic farmers, conventional, farmers. So it's very important to have choices for a formulating diet because when we look at how much it costs to raise pigs, 70% of that cost is just feed. So it's a pretty big chunk.
Gabriella Lima:And then if you have a grain that if corn prices are quite high, and then you can replace or add some of it instead of just a 100% corn as your energy source, then you can lower that feed cost, which basically looking at the final price that can kinda lower, so it can be a little bit cheaper to raise your pigs. So for this project, since we didn't see any difference for performance, it tells us, okay, if corn prices are high and then, the price of pigs are also quite high, maybe it's viable to replace some of it with hybrid rye because it will not impact the overall performance.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Thank you for sharing that. So to wrap up our discussion here, do you have any closing remarks you'd like to make or or maybe something that I didn't ask but you would like to mention?
Gabriella Lima:Yeah. I think if you do have the chance, definitely read more, like, the other papers that have been published from our team. So as I mentioned, Megan Kavanagh, she was a master student that shared this project with me. I think it's quite nice to see the whole picture, and then I'll let you take your own opinions on her project and her results. But, basically, overall, she also didn't see a lot of difference between, the poor quality of pigs that were fed the control diet compared to pigs that were fed the right diet.
Gabriella Lima:But definitely check that so you can see all the results. And, yeah, I think, like I said, we had the opportunity to look at so many aspects of growing hybrid rye and then having this whole picture. It's super interesting and very helpful when you have to make a choice that will impact so much the cost of growing your pigs.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Well, thank you, Gabby, for sharing your research on feeding hybrid rye to organic growing finishing pigs.
Gabriella Lima:Yeah. Thank you again for having me. It was very fun to talk about it.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:And thank you to those listening to the University of Minnesota Swine and You podcast. This has been Sara Sheik Bilke, swine extension educator, along with Gabriela Lima, animal science graduate student. To further connect with the University of Minnesota Swine Extension, please visit the swine specific web pages on University of Minnesota Extension's website at www.extension.umn.edu backslash swine. And on those pages, you'll find connections to our blog and our Facebook page. To learn about research being done by our swine faculty in veterinary medicine, please visit their Swine in Minnesota blog at www.
Sarah Schieck Boelke:Umnswinenews.com.
