Tailored non-GMO soybeans create new opportunities in animal and aquafeeds

Nov. 4, 2011 - PRLog -- Dr. John Schillinger is acknowledged as one of the most accomplished soybean breeders of the past century and a father of GMO soybeans. But today, Dr. Schillinger ‘s research centres on non-genetically modified (non-GMO) varieties. For the past decade Dr. Schillinger has specialized in creating high protein soybeans with low anti-nutritional factors, tailored for specific feed uses.

Dr. Schillinger has devoted over 40 years of his distinguished career to working with soybean genetics. His research programs have emphasized the function of various compositional factors of soybeans and their impact on nutritive value in feed and food. His developments of soybean varieties for the food industry in United States, Japan and Korea are well recognized. Currently, four of Schillinger Genetics’ food grade varieties (240.RY, 389.FYC, 3520.FHPC and 448.FHPC) are among the most popular varieties for tofu, soy milk, soy snack and miscellaneous production. All of these varieties were selected for high protein content.

For the past 10 years, John Schillinger and his team at Schillinger genetics have turned their attention to animal and aquatic feed use. In 2007, John and his team began supporting feeding trials with swine, poultry and turkeys followed by aquaculture feeding trials with trout, salmon and shrimp – all with great success.

Thanks to Dr. Schillinger, novel soybean varieties are now commercially available with oligosaccharide levels (stachyose and raffinose, oligos) significantly reduced from a normal value of 5.5% to 0.5%. Similarly, unique soybean cultivars have been developed which significantly reduce trypsin inhibitors from 55,000 TIU/g present in regular commodity beans to a low of 7,000 TIU/g.

From a practical perspective, the value added advantage in using these improved soybean varieties is highlighted by savings in processing costs since there is no need for heat-deactivation of protease inhibitors, improvement of nutritive value as there is no nutrient deterioration and the elimination of potentially detrimental effects of excessive oligosaccharide concentrations

For the growing aquafeed market, soybean cultivars have been selected with 15-20% higher protein content and with the difficult-to-digest carbohydrates raffinose and stachyose, as well as trypsin inhibitors significantly reduced. The defatted meal derived from these cultivars exceeds 56% in protein content and with further gentle processing will surpass 60% in crude protein (CP). Feeding trials comparing protein digestibility, metabolizable energy, mortality, FCR and growth performance have been conducted with Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, Pacific white shrimp, European sea bass, cobia, yellowtail and red drum. Additional trials with other aquaculture species will be conducted in 2012.

Dr. Schillinger’s team will describe how redesigned soybean varieties are opening up opportunities for animal and aquafeed manufacturers at the feed conferences FIAAP Asia Conference and Aquafeed Horizons, taking place February 15 and 16, 2012, during Victam Asia 2012 in Bangkok.

For more information about these meetings, please visit:  http://www.feedconferences.com

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Linx Conferences specializes in workshops and conferences for the aquafeed and animal feed industries worldwide. The international conferences Aquafeed Horizons and FIAAP Conference are held along side the feed and grain industry trade show, Victam, in Europe and Asia Pacific. Linx Conferences is a division of Aquafeed, the specialist information provider for the aquafeed industries.