01/05/07 Nutritional Grains

Getting more nutrition from grains. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Nutrient packed grains have been used as animal feed for years and while most of the nutrients are used, much is lost as well. Phosphorus is one of those essential nutrients. A new variety of barley named "Herald," it is the first commercial-quality barley that provides a greater proportion of its phosphorus in a bioavailable form--that is, more readily absorbed and used. Victor Raboy a scientist with the Agricultural Research Service was part of the team working on this project. RABOY: Non-ruminants like poultry and pigs don't digest this compound very well. So it represents say 2/3 to 3/4 of the phosphates that is in grain, so that's a significant amount and it's not digested well by pigs and chickens. Raboy says that in addition to the animal not processing all the phosphorus, it then becomes a waste product. RABOY: It can contribute to water pollution so it's a phosphorus management question and there's a couple of approaches to this problem. Animals need phosphorus, it's an important nutrient, so if animals being raised on grains and most of the phosphorus is in a form they can't digest then the seeds have to be supplemented with phosphorus. So what we did was very simple, we looked for new gene types/ New types of barley, corn and soybeans where the amount of phosphorus stayed the same but the chemistry changed, where there was less of this particular problem compound and more of the type of phosphorus that animals can absorb. Compared to other top-yielding feed barleys like Baronesse and Colter, Herald had about 10 percent less total phosphorus, but had more than three times as much phosphorus in the bioavailable form. RABOY: If you prepare feeds using this type of grain and otherwise take in to account the chemistry so you put together the feed properly, you could reduce the amount of phosphorus in the animal waste by say 15% or 20% and that's significant. That's a step in the right direction because too much phosphorus in rivers and streams can lead to something called utrification and contribute to water pollution. So if you can reduce the amount of phosphorus in animal waste by 10, 20 percent you are taking a step in the right direction. Seed companies and plant researchers can acquire supplies of Herald seed from the Foundation Seed Program at Kimberly, Idaho. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.