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Don’t let your profits dry up this summer!

Submitted by aeadmin on Mon, 04/10/2017 - 00:00

Beat heat stress

With the European summer only weeks away, it is time to start preparing management strategies for heat stress. This issue has traditionally been associated with the hotter regions in Europe, such as the Mediterranean. However, as climate change continues to impact temperature, European countries deemed to have a more temperate climate must also be aware of and prepare to take action against heat stress.

When cows are suffering from heat stress, there are several indicators that can be observed. Often, the first indicator is a reduction in dry matter intake. This can be followed by a change in behaviour, combined with quickened breathing and excessive panting. This leads to difficulties in maintaining efficient rumen function, which results in decreased milk production and longer periods between conception. The cow’s maintenance needs will also increase, as the animal can be at greater risk of contracting diseases, such as subacute ruminal acidosis and laminitis. All of these negative heat stress effects will lower a farm’s ability to maintain efficiency and profitability.

Don’t let your profits dry up this summer!

Follow these top tips to combat the effects of heat stress on your farm.

1. Water management

As temperatures increases, so does the cow’s water intake. However, a large volume of water is lost through increased urinary excretion, sweating and respiration. Therefore, water requirements for lactating cows can increase by 10 percent as temperatures move from 15 degrees Celsius to 26 degrees Celsius. The need for more water will increase as milk production rises and as temperatures rise above 26 degrees Celsius.

A cow’s water intake can be improved by:

  • Locating water troughs in shaded areas.
  • Ensuring there is an adequate supply of fresh water at the trough.
  • Cleaning water troughs regularly.
  • Providing sufficient space for the cow at the water trough; there should be a minimum of two linear feet (0.61 metres) per 15–20 cows.
  • Cooling the water trough by adding shade.

2. Forage management

It is very important to identify forages that are highly digestible to use during heat stress. This will help maintain intake and energy levels. Ensure a forage’s quality is not compromised by managing the silage face to minimise secondary fermentation.

When packing the silage, make certain that it is tightly compressed and covered sufficiently to avoid spoilage. Remove 6–12 inches of silage from the exposed face of the silo on a daily basis. This will help to keep the silage fresh and will prevent heating.

3. Feeding management

As the temperature and humidity increase, cows will change the time they feed to a cooler period of the day. A greater proportion of the feed should be provided later in the day, when the temperature has dropped. This will help to avoid secondary fermentation and drive consumption.

Three to four hours after cows feed, they will experience excess heat production due to the digestion process. By moving the feeding time to later in the day, the cow will have the opportunity to digest the food when the temperature is cooler. This allows the increased internal heat production to be more tolerable for the cow.

At the end of each day, it is important to clean out feed bunks. This will help to keep the feed fresh and will reduce the possible effects of heating or spoilage as well as lower the risk of secondary fermentation.

For more information please contact acasey@alltech.com

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Ag leader of the future: The farmer technologist

Submitted by aeadmin on Mon, 04/10/2017 - 00:00

An interview with Dr. Karl Dawson

The following is an edited transcript of our interview with Dr. Karl Dawson, vice president and chief scientific officer at Alltech. For Karl’s full bio, click here.

Before you joined Alltech, you were head of the University of Kentucky (UK) animal science department for 20 years, and you still serve as an adjunct professor with UK. You have a unique insight from being in the private sector business as well as academia. How do we interest the next generation in ag science?

That’s a real interesting question because there’s been a gap develop between what we call agriculture, particularly animal science, and the technologies that are being developed today. As a scientist, I think the technologies are really exciting, but sometimes it’s kind of hard to get the next generation, particularly the people from rural America and agriculture, to get excited about the same things. We have a lot of unique technologies. We talk about molecular biology and the things we can see with molecular biology; most farmers I talk to, most siblings from farmer’s kids that are coming off the farm, do not have a good understanding of what those things are, so we have this gap that we need to fill.

What we’re finding is that often times just the university education is not enough to give them confidence and the ability to lead in agriculture through using these technologies. One of the things we are doing right now is looking at a lot of outside programs that go beyond their degree and beyond academic training to see how we can interest students in doing those things. It starts at a very young level. We have programs that are set up at the elementary school. On our staff in research, we have two liaisons that do nothing but interact with college, high school and elementary students to get them interested in what we’re doing in terms of science and how that can be incorporated into farm life.

Other programs that are very interesting are those that are competitive. We have an innovation program, where we have students build projects that will become a business plan themselves, taking technology and applying it to specific problems. It’s an outside-of-the-classroom activity that gets students excited. There is nothing like seeing them light up when they win an award for a project.

We have, at a higher level up, a career program. This is built around the idea that students who come out of college need that little extra boost and piece of information. We actually take students and embed them into the business situation and, in some cases, right on the farm so they get to know the animals and what the farm business really looks like. This is before they go out and try to set up their own business or work within a commercial business.

The take-home message is that we really need to give experience, hands-on experience outside of the classroom. That’s really becoming almost a requirement for our people as they move into our business.

That certainly makes sense. As a professor, and on the Alltech side as the head of our research program, are the up-and-comers that you’re seeing from an agriculture background, or do they come into agriculture by chance because of other things they are interested in?

You run into both kinds. I came up through the agricultural school system, so I’m used to land-grant universities and the kids that came from the farm. But I actually looked at the list of students that were competing in our Young Scientist awards, and I asked them: How many of you are from an agriculture background? Of the 15 sitting in the room, only two raised their hands. You know, the kids are gravitating to agriculture because they see some of the applications that can take place.

It’s almost reverse of what we think. We think about children leaving the farm and never coming back. These are students coming in from urban environments, from science environments, and wanting to understand what’s going on on the farm.

That’s encouraging and fascinating.

It really is. You think about that and it really reflects the excitement of agriculture research and application technology. I kind of coined a term I’m going to use in my presentation here talking about the “farmer technologist”; that is the kind of people who will probably be our leaders in the future.

Dr. Karl Dawson spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks, including Karl's, are now available on the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

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ONE 17: una ventana al futuro del sector productor lácteo

Submitted by mmolano on Thu, 04/06/2017 - 02:57

Las sesiones de debate se centrarán en la robótica, los productos lácteos y las tecnologías disruptivas

ONE: La conferencia de ideas de Alltech (ONE17), que se celebrará del 21 al 24 de mayo en Lexington (Kentucky, EE. UU.), promete ser una fuente de inspiración y motivación para los productores y los líderes de la industria agroganadera, pero, más importante aún, promete prepararles para el futuro. 

La conferencia de tres días reunirá a expertos del sector venidos de todo el mundo para compartir ideas y soluciones a los problemas más acuciantes a los que se enfrentan hoy en día la agricultura y la ganadería.

Para dar la oportunidad a que cada rincón de la agricultura y la ganadería participe en la disrupción, ONE17 incluirá varios bloques temáticos, incluida una sesión específica dedicada al vacuno de leche. Desde abordar las leyes gubernamentales a debatir sobre la explotación lechera del futuro, ONE17 ofrecerá soluciones reales a los productores lecheros.

"Creemos que es fundamental inspirar a todas las personas involucradas en la industria agrícola y ganadera para que puedan abrazar la disrupción", destacó el Dr. Pearse Lyons, fundador y presidente de Alltech"La sesión dedicada al vacuno de leche brindará la oportunidad a los productores lecheros de descubrir estrategias prácticas y rentables que garanticen el futuro de su granja".

Sesión temática de ONE17 dedicada al vacuno de leche

La historia de Kerrygold: aplicar la disrupción a un producto, cambiar su sabor e implicar al ganadero: ¿cómo ha logrado Kerrygold convertirse, gracias a su posición privilegiada como disruptor de la industria, en un líder del mercado de la mantequilla?

El Internet de las cosas y el modelo Nespresso: consolidar un servicio único para las explotaciones lecheras: ¿cómo beneficia a las granjas comunicar datos en tiempo real a un equipo de nutrólogos?, ¿cómo pueden satisfacerse las necesidades nutricionales diarias del rebaño mediante un dispositivo especial para la mezcladora?

Una historia puerta a puerta: ¿qué puede aprender la industria lechera del éxito de los amish de Pensilvania?

Disrupción en la industria lechera: un estudio de caso que ilustra cómo las nuevas necesidades permitieron agudizar el ingenio en Arabia Saudí.

La explotación lechera del futuro: ¿es la robótica la nueva disrupción de la industria lechera?

Disrupción en Washington: ¿qué puede esperarse del nuevo escenario de liderazgo?, ¿cómo podría impulsarse la disrupción en la cadena alimentaria y el comercio mundial?

Para obtener más información sobre la sesión temática de ONE17 dedicada al vacuno de leche, visite: one.alltech.com/dairy.

Únase a la conversación en Twitter con la etiqueta #ONE17.

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Poultry and swine production gain new recommendations for supplementation with organic minerals

Submitted by aeadmin on Thu, 04/06/2017 - 00:00

[ARAUCÁRIA, BRAZIL] – The Federal University of Viçosa (UFV-MG) in Brazil has launched a new edition of the “Brazilian Tables for Poultry and Swine,” which is considered one of the most important references in the formulation of feed for the global agribusiness industry. This is the fourth edition of the material, which was presented during the IV International Symposium on Nutritional Requirements of Poultry and Swine on March 29 and 30 at the Federal University of Viçosa.

The new edition verifies, through several studies using Alltech products, the efficiency of organic minerals in the supplementation of monogastric animals. The research monitored the inclusion of organic minerals in the diets of pigs between 66.1 pounds and 110.2 pounds, and in chickens during the growth period. These analyses indicated that the levels of organic minerals required for animal performance are 33 percent to 50 percent lower than that of inorganic trace minerals.

These levels can change according to the species and animal purpose, whether for production or reproduction. This is due to the bioavailability of the microminerals, which facilitate the absorption of nutrients in the digestive tract and can therefore aid in weight gain and feed efficiency in animals.

Other advantages of organic mineral supplementation are reduced impact on the environment and a greater return to the consumer.

“Our recommendations for the level of organic microminerals in diets can be lower than or equal to 50 percent of the recommended levels of inorganic minerals, which results in the best use of the minerals by the animal,” said Horacio Rostagno, professor at the Department of Animal Science at the Federal University of Viçosa. “The first thing to consider is the reduction in the excretion of microminerals into the environment through the feces, which we can observe in poultry production. This reduces the risk of environmental contamination by the decreased deposition of waste. It may even benefit consumers, who will find higher quality poultry and pork products because of the increased performance they had on-farm.”

This is the first time the tables have presented recommendations for replacing inorganic minerals with organic trace minerals and vitamins for supplementation. The new edition also includes updates related to genetic development and advancement in animals.

“We saw genetic advances related to feeding efficiency and conversion,” said Melissa Hannas, professor at the Department of Animal Science at the Federal University of Viçosa. “Because of this, we had to make adjustments in the calculations for the consumption of feed and ingestion of nutrients. All the energy requirements were recalculated to consider maintenance and production, resulting in a new definition of the ideal protein for feed formulation. Another highlight is the ratio of essential and non-essential nitrogen, which allows working with formulations to best meet the animal’s needs.”

On-farm, some producers are already putting the use of organic minerals into practice, and the results have shown efficiency and a gain in performance.

“In addition to the studies having proven the effectiveness of organic microminerals, we have been watching the performance of some industries that are using these ingredients,” said Marlene Schimidt, technical manager for Alltech Brazil. “For example, in poultry, it is possible to achieve improvements in the chicken carcass, feather production and egg laying. The inclusion of organic trace minerals will be a trend in the years to come, because it is directly linked to sustainability due to the decreased release of excretion into the environment.”

On March 28, prior to the launch of the new tables, Helvio da Cruz Ferreira Junior, a doctorate student at the Federal University of Viçosa, presented a study about poultry mineral balance during Alltech’s Mineral Efficiency Symposium. The event also included a presentation about trends in monogastric nutrition. Dr. Fernando Rutz, professor at the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil, discussed his work on the impact of a sick or stressed animal on the production system. He also detailed a strategy to minimize this problem, including vaccination, nutrition, management, physiology, planning, and genetics.

The event also received a global perspective from Dr. Ramon Diniz Malheiros, research associate at North Carolina State University, who discussed nutrition news from the U.S., showing that Brazil meets all the necessary requirements to compete in worldwide production. According to Malheiros, the Brazilian industry and its producers need to be alert to changes dictated by consumers, antibiotic-free meats and preferences for cage-free production.

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<p>The fourth edition of “Brazilian Tables for Poultry and Swine” from the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV-MG) in Brazil, is considered one of the most important references in the formulation of feed for the global agribusiness industry. The new edition verifies, through several studies using Alltech products, the efficiency of organic minerals in the supplementation of monogastric animals.</p>

Food and Mood

Submitted by aeadmin on Thu, 04/06/2017 - 00:00

Stress can affect your body, your thoughts and feelings, and your behavior. Stress causes our cortisol levels to rise. Cortisol can cause food cravings, usually for high carbohydrate or sweet foods. Not only do many people turn to food as a comfort during stressful times, they also tend to consume more highly refined carbohydrates like white pasta, bread, rice, bagels, chips, crackers, baked goods and other sweets. Although these foods may provide quick and immediate comfort, the more of them we eat, the worse our mood gets. High intake of these foods leads to crashes that may increase susceptibility to new stress. After a spike in blood sugar caused by eating a large amount of highly refined carbohydrates, it’s common to experience mental fog, tiredness, anxiety and irritability, all of which may exacerbate existing stress.

Cortisol also activates an enzyme in our fat cells. Visceral fat cells – the fat found around vital organs in our abdomen – have significantly more of these enzymes than subcutaneous fat – the fat just below the skin on other areas of the body like legs and buttocks – which is why stress causes belly fat accumulation. The more stress a person has, the more abdominal obesity can occur, which is linked to a greater risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Luckily, there are other components of food that can help regulate stress by providing specific nutrients or sustained energy.

Better mood foods

DHA omega-3

This essential fatty acid has been studied for its positive effects on mood and protection of our brain against chronic stress. Increasing dietary intake of DHA omega-3 may help prevent the harmful effects of chronic stress and the development of stress-related disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Better Mood Foods: DHA-enriched eggs, meat and milk, salmon, mackerel and sardines

Zinc

Diets low in zinc have been linked to anxiety and depression. A daily intake is required, as our body doesn’t have a zinc storage system.

Better Mood Foods: oysters, beef, crab, lobster, chicken, turkey, beans and nuts

Magnesium

This mineral has been called “the original chill pill” for its role in regulating cortisol levels and its ability to prevent the entrance of stress hormones to the brain.

Better Mood Foods: spinach, whole grains, legumes, potatoes, avocados, nuts and seeds

Vitamin B6

An important function of vitamin B6 is helping to produce serotonin and norephinephrine, both of which positively influence mood.

Better Mood Foods: chickpeas, tuna, salmon, chicken and turkey

Whole grains

Both simple (white bread and pasta, bagels, baked goods, etc.) and complex (whole grain bread and pasta, oatmeal, etc.) carbohydrates are turned into glucose, a type of sugar used as fuel by the body. However, complex carbohydrates contain vitamins, minerals and fiber that slow the release of glucose into the blood stream, providing the body a steady supply of energy, as well as serotonin, a “feel good” chemical.

Better Mood Foods: oatmeal, brown rice, whole grain bread and pasta, quinoa and popcorn

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El 94% de las más de 19.000 fábricas de cerveza son artesanales, según un nuevo estudio de The Brewers Journal y Alltech

Submitted by mmolano on Wed, 04/05/2017 - 03:59

El Reino Unido es el país con mayor número de fábricas per cápita: 25 por cada millón de habitantes.

La revolución de la cerveza artesanal alcanza cada vez a más países a lo largo y ancho del globo. La demanda de los consumidores y la creciente pasión por la fabricación de cerveza artesanal hace posible tomarse hoy en día una IPA en la India o Islandia, una Saison de Bélgica o Brasil y una APA de EE.UU. o Ucrania.

 

 

Según el nuevo estudio publicado por Alltech y The Brewers Journal, el número de fábricas mundial supera los 19.000 en los 209 países y territorios analizados. De ellas, 17.732 (un 94 %) pueden clasificarse como artesanales. En el estudio se considera "fábrica artesanal" a aquella que tiene menos de 30 empleados, produce menos de 5000 hectolitros por año o cuya propiedad es en más del 50 % privada.

La moda de la cerveza artesanal ha disparado el número total de nuevas fábricas en todo el mundo. Tan solo en EE. UU. y en el Reino Unido, el crecimiento del número de fábricas artesanales supera el 10 % anual. Esto ha causado una profunda transformación en los tiradores y refrigeradores de pubs y bares de todos los continentes. La pasión por innovar y experimentar y el compromiso de la comunidad han creado un nuevo mercado para fabricantes y distribuidores.

El mayor productor de cerveza artesanal continúa siendo EE. UU., con 4750 fábricas artesanales de un total de 5025. Sin embargo, el Reino Unido posee más fábricas per cápita, con 25 fábricas por cada millón de habitantes, frente a las 15 de EE. UU. y las 16 de Alemania.

"El liderazgo de EE. UU. y el Reino Unido en producción artesanal es consecuencia de una legislación que abrió las puertas a los fabricantes artesanales", explicó Tim Sheahan, redactor de The Brewers Journal"En EE. UU. el momento decisivo tuvo lugar en 1978, cuando el presidente Jimmy Carter permitió la fabricación casera por primera vez desde la Prohibición. En el Reino Unido, el punto de inflexión llegó en 2002, gracias a la legislación en materia del impuesto progresivo sobre la cerveza del primer ministro Gordon Brown, que redujo dicho impuesto a cero para las fábricas que produjeran menos de 5000 hectolitros".

Aunque el actual movimiento de la cerveza artesanal se originó en EE. UU., teniendo una gran influencia en la actualización de los estilos tradicionales, existen más fábricas artesanales en Europa que en Norteamérica. Los 10 mayores productores de cerveza artesanal son EE. UU., Reino Unido, Alemania, Italia, España, Francia, Canadá, Holanda, Suiza y Australia.

La corriente mundial que alienta la moda por la cerveza artesanal ha motivado a Alltech, una empresa internacional con una división de fabricación de cerveza y destilación célebre por su Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale ®, a aprovechar su presencia mundial para ofrecer a los fabricantes de cerveza la oportunidad de establecer contactos y exponer sus creaciones.

Alltech organiza numerosas ferias de la cerveza en todo el mundo, de las cuales la principal es la "Alltech Craft Brews & Food Fair" de Dublín (Irlanda). Actualmente en su quinta edición, ha reunido a 38 fábricas de cinco países y acogido a más de 7000 asistentes. Esta feria ha tenido su réplica en otros lugares donde Alltech está presente, como Kentucky, Canadá, Brasil y China.

"Es estupendo ver cuántas cervezas diferentes se crean para estas ferias. En Irlanda hemos podido comprobar que la mayoría de las cervezas de temporada se presentaron por primera vez en la Alltech Craft Brews & Food Fair", destacó Gearoid Cahill, director de ciencias de la cerveza de Alltech para Europa. "Existe un genuino espíritu de colaboración entre los fabricantes de cerveza, mientras que, para los consumidores, la oportunidad de conocer en persona a su maestro cervecero favorito supone una experiencia memorable".

Para obtener más información sobre la feria "Alltech Craft Brews & Food Fair", visite http://eu.alltechbrewsandfood.com/

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El laboratorio europeo de micotoxinas de Alltech recibe la acreditación ISO

Submitted by mmolano on Wed, 04/05/2017 - 03:00

Esta certificación garantiza la precisión y la imparcialidad de los datos analíticos.

El laboratorio de servicios analíticos de micotoxinas 37+® de Alltech situado en Dunboyne (Condado de Meath, Irlanda) ha sido acreditado con la norma internacional ISO/IEC 17025:2005 otorgada por Perry Johnson Laboratory Accreditation, Inc.

 

 

 

Esta evaluación, objetiva y realizada por terceros, avala los requisitos técnicos y de gestión del laboratorio y garantiza la exactitud y la imparcialidad de sus resultados analíticos.

El laboratorio europeo de análisis de micotoxinas 37+, inaugurado en abril de 2016, es el tercero de este tipo para Alltech, que cuenta con dos laboratorios similares en EE. UU. y China. El ámbito de validez de la acreditación incluye el método analítico patentado 37+ LC/MS/MS, una técnica de vanguardia que permite detectar y cuantificar la presencia de más de 37 micotoxinas distintasa concentraciones de partes por billón (ppb) y partes por trillón (ppt).

 

"Esta acreditación sienta las bases de la detección de micotoxinas a nivel mundial y ratifica la confianza que han depositado nuestros clientes en el análisis preciso, exacto y exhaustivo que ofrece el programa de análisis de micotoxinas 37+ de Alltech", destacó Steve Mobley, responsable del laboratorio europeo de análisis de micotoxinas 37+ de Alltech.

 

"Nuestro enfoque analítico nos permite investigar más a fondo los problemas de salud de los animales de producción, analizar las tendencias globales en micotoxinas y desarrollar programas completos y personalizados de control de micotoxinas para nuestros clientes", añadió.

Dirigido por la Dra. Emma Daniels, químico analítico sénior y coordinadora del laboratorio, el laboratorio europeo 37+ de Alltech ofrece servicios muy demandados con una elevada capacidad de procesamiento de perfiles de micotoxinas para acelerar el proceso de detección, ahorrando así tiempo y dinero a los ganaderos, los agricultores y los productores de alimentos europeos.

Junto con su programa de manejo de micotoxinas, Alltech sigue compilando una exhaustiva base de datos que permite identificar problemáticas asociadas con las micotoxinas a nivel mundial. Hasta la fecha, los laboratorios de análisis de micotoxinas de Alltechhan procesado más de 14.000 muestras desde que, en 2012, se inauguró el primer laboratorio específico en Lexington (Kentucky, EE. UU.).

Los resultados obtenidos en las muestras de ensilados procedentes de Norteamérica analizadas en enero y febrero han revelado la presencia de tricotecenos de tipo B y ácido fusárico. Aunque los tricotecenos de tipo B siguen siendo las micotoxinas más habituales en los ensilados con efectos sobre la salud y la productividad de los animales, se ha detectado recientemente un aumento de los casos de contaminación por tricotecenos de tipo A y micotoxinas de Penicillium. En Europa, los tricotecenos de tipo B son frecuentes en los ensilados, aunque también existe un riesgo elevado de contaminación por micotoxinas de Penicillium, un tipo de micotoxina que se observó en el 45 % de las muestras analizadas a una concentración media de 1533 ppb.

Para obtener más información sobre el programa de manejo de micotoxinas de Alltech, visite www.knowmycotoxins.com.

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Phasing out antibiotics in poultry: Know your options

Submitted by aeadmin on Tue, 04/04/2017 - 00:00

“The judicious use and reduction of antibiotics in poultry production is here to stay,” said Dr. Kayla Price, poultry technical manager for Alltech Canada, in a recent webinar.

In the last few years, we have seen an influx of products being marketed as alternatives to antibiotics. This can leave producers wondering, “How do I choose between the numerous alternatives on the market?” “Is there a direct replacement for antibiotics?” and “What should be my biggest focus to maintain healthy birds?” In the webinar titled “Navigating the new world: Phasing out antibiotic growth promoters,” Price shares her insights on these questions and more.

“I think it is really important when we are starting to look at general bird health that we make sure we are taking on a holistic approach,” she explained. “Specifically, we really have to think of the intestinal system from hatch to finish.”

In the webinar, Price discusses:

  • An overview of the market for antibiotic-free poultry production in the United States and Canada.
  • How to support the beneficial gut bacteria and maintain the health of the villi/microvilli.
  • A list of key questions to ask when deciding on an alternative to antibiotics.
  • What benefits a holistic program can bring.

Price highlights that there is not one silver bullet solution for the removal of antibiotics; nutrition and biosecurity are both crucial to ensure success.

 

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Western Kentucky University and University of Kentucky teams win Alltech Innovation Competition 2017

Submitted by aeadmin on Sun, 04/02/2017 - 00:00

Winning teams took home $10,000 apiece, the same amount with which Dr. Pearse Lyons founded Alltech

[LEXINGTON, Ky.] — As seven universities demonstrated at the Alltech Innovation Competition 2017, university-level innovation is firing on all cylinders in Kentucky. A range of disruptive technologies were showcased, from eco-friendly and Kentucky-centric ventures to those featuring virtual reality and music.

Western Kentucky University’s undergraduate team and the University of Kentucky’s graduate team took home the top prizes of $10,000 apiece, the same amount with which Dr. Pearse Lyons founded Alltech, now a more than $2 billion company.

“Kentucky was a winner today,” said Dr. Karl Dawson, vice president and chief scientific officer at Alltech. “We really saw what the capabilities of our young people are.”

The Western Kentucky University undergraduate team, including students Taylor Wathen, Blake Knott and Zachary Wathen, and their advisors Dawn Langkamp Bolton and Whitney Oliver Peake, captured the undergraduate first place prize with their venture Tech Gnar. The program and database uses hundreds of complex measurements to suggest songs to users that are tailor-made to their musical interests. They are planning to launch their website and an app at the end of the year.

“This competition is great, because it shows that anyone can be an entrepreneur,” Taylor Wathen said, noting that neither she nor her team members are business majors. “We created this venture for the love of music.”

2017 Alltech Innovation CompetitionThe University of Kentucky graduate team, including students Fletcher Young and Zach Yonts, and their advisors Mariam Gorjian and Warren O. Nash III, captured the graduate first place prize with their venture Stillage Solutions.

The University of Kentucky graduate team, including students Fletcher Young and Zach Yonts, and their advisors Mariam Gorjian and Warren O. Nash III, captured the graduate first place prize with their venture Stillage Solutions. By using leftover stillage from the brewing and distilling process to produce activated carbon, the team hopes to develop a low-cost, high-quality and more environmentally friendly activated carbon product than what is currently developed using coal, coconut shells and wood. This product could be used in everything from water and gas filtration systems to fuel cells and supercapacitator-driven devices, such as cell phones. With Kentucky’s booming brewing and distilling sector, they felt well-placed to enter this market.

“This is what it’s all about — disrupting the industry,” said Young. “With our venture, we can start small, because all of the products we need to begin can be found locally, and then we can expand.”

For the first time, Alltech also awarded the Disruptor Award — a reflection of this year’s theme at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, “Disrupt the Disruptors” — to the team with the most innovative venture. This year’s Disruptor Award of $2,000 was awarded to Bellarmine University’s undergraduate team for their EcoCups idea, a biodegradable version of the popular K-Cups used for coffee. The team members included Ariana Sherrard, Michaela Julian and Michael Ann Humphreys, and their advisor was Dr. Michael Mattei.

2017 Alltech Innovation CompetitionThe Bellarmine University undergraduate team, including students Ariana Sherrard, Michaela Julian and Michael Ann Humphreys, and their advisor Dr. Michael Mattei, captured the Disruptor Award for their venture EcoCups.

The winning teams’ competition included Bellarmine University, Eastern Kentucky University, Morehead State University, the University of Louisville and the University of Pikeville, with concepts ranging from seasonal, family farm models to virtual laboratories.

“All of the unique ventures presented today reflect the high quality of education, teaching and entrepreneurial talent in Kentucky,” said Suniti Mujumdar, manager of educational engagement at Alltech. “These creative students have the spark to ignite meaningful change to economically benefit the Commonwealth.

“The Alltech Innovation Competition’s goal is to connect students with business professionals for inspiration as they pursue their passions toward building extraordinary careers,” she continued. “We are honored to be involved with fostering the next generation of entrepreneurship in Kentucky.”

The Alltech Innovation Competition started in 2013 in Kentucky and Ireland, and challenges undergraduate and graduate university teams to develop forward-thinking business plans on innovative ideas that will improve local economies and have the potential to change the world.

Alltech also holds sister competitions in Ireland, India and Brazil, reflecting Alltech’s commitment to lifelong education and the inspiration of innovation and entrepreneurship across the globe.

Alltech’s education and entrepreneurship commitment doesn’t stop at the undergraduate and graduate levels, but will continue at the company’s flagship international conference, now in its 33rd year, in Lexington, Kentucky. Registration for ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference, to be held May 21–24, is now open. For more information, visit one.alltech.com. Join the conversation on Twitter with #ONE17.

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The Western Kentucky University undergraduate team, including students Taylor Wathen, Blake Knott and Zachary Wathen, and their advisors Dawn Langkamp Bolton and Whitney Oliver Peake, captured the undergraduate first place prize with their venture Tech Gnar.

Gut health is key to reducing antimicrobial use in pig production

Submitted by tgervis on Fri, 03/31/2017 - 14:09

There is a global movement to reduce antimicrobial use in livestock production. Antimicrobials have historically been, and are still, used extensively to address gut health issues in piglets, and a major challenge is finding alternatives to antimicrobials in order to support the gut during the period when it is developing. The goal to reduce antimicrobial use should be modified and instead viewed as a goal to produce healthy production systems that support the animal in all stages of production.

In-feed prophylactic antibiotic use in pig production is not used to treat sick pigs — it is used to treat suboptimal production systems. In the Alltech Antibiotic Reduction programme, the first step is therefore to optimise the health of the production system, which will make systematic prophylactic use redundant. Such an approach will not result in increased disease and loss in productivity; on the contrary, productivity will most likely increase, and the reduced expenditures on antibiotics can be invested in other areas in order to optimize the overall welfare and health of the pigs.

A healthy gut is key to a healthy animal, and, increasingly, emphasis is being placed on optimising gut health in our production animals. A healthy gut is not only a gut without disease; a healthy gut is an effective digestive organ that can mount a good defence against disease and easily cope with change. Immunity is the body’s internal defence against pathogens. The presence of disease-causing microorganisms in the gut is not sufficient to cause disease; disease occurs once the pathogen breaks down the gut’s defence. When the gut commensal microflora is out of balance, dysbiosis occurs between the beneficial microbiota and potential disease-causing organisms, and it becomes easier for pathogens to damage the gut’s structures and functions. Prebiotics, probiotics and mannan-oligosaccharides can assist the gut in adapting and minimising dysbiosis.

The establishment and maintenance of good gut function are vitally important in reducing neonatal morbidity and mortality. Neonatal nutrition is a critical component in the establishment of normal gut function, from digestion and absorption to barrier function and the development of the immune system. It is therefore important to ensure good colostrum and milk production in sows as well as good creep feeding.

Weaning disorders are one of the most common, and damaging, problems in pig husbandry, resulting in antibiotics being used post-weaning to protect the stressed gut and immune systems of the piglets. In a healthy production system, it is essential to do everything possible in order to help prepare the piglet for weaning as early as in the farrowing unit. Furthermore, at the time of weaning, it is important to minimise stressors such as transport, comingling of litters, large weaner groups, diet, poor air quality and unhygienic conditions.

Mycotoxins are toxins produced from moulds that cause serious health problems in pig production and can result in severe economic losses worldwide. Due to current climatic conditions and production systems with long distribution chains of feed, the risks associated with mycotoxins in feed and bedding material are high. Intestinal cells are the first cells to be exposed to mycotoxins, and often at higher concentrations than other tissues. Mycotoxins specifically target cells, such as gut epithelium, that have a high protein turnover and protein-activated cells. In order to improve the overall health status of the herd, appropriate measures need to be taken to minimise the exposure of pigs to mycotoxins, particularly in terms of feed storage, feed sourcing and the inclusion of good broad-spectrum mycotoxin binders in the feed.

The aim of the Alltech Antibiotic Reduction programme is to create a consistently healthy pig and make prophylactic and metaphylaxis antibiotic use redundant. This programme can assist the farmer in developing an action plan. Various feed additives and nutritional solutions are valuable tools for gut health in pig production, but these supplements alone are not sufficient for a healthy production system. Many times, there are more difficult steps that must be taken than simply feeding additives, including updates to management routines and resource allocation and needs.

The programme is for pig producers who are interested in achieving higher levels of health in their herd and are committed to taking steps to achieve these goals. Audits to establish the baseline current situation and recurrent audits to monitor progress are important in order to stay motivated and continue a steady rate of progress. The Alltech team assesses the weaknesses and strengths of the production system and sets up an action plan. In addition to gut health and nutrition components, the Alltech Antibiotic Reduction programme audits include evaluations of performance, pig welfare, pig respiratory and systemic health, reproductive performance, management, housing, antimicrobial use, biosecurity and the cost-effectiveness of production. Recommendations include nutritional solutions, management, antimicrobial use strategy, biosecurity measures, reproductive performance and productivity goals in order to optimise pig health at all stages of production. Through this program, producers have not only achieved increased productivity and reduced antibiotic use, but have also found it rewarding to be part of the global action plan to use our valuable antibiotics responsibly in order to ensure their viability for future generations.

To find out more about the Alltech Antibiotic Reduction programme, please visit go.alltech.com/antibiotic-reduction.

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Alltech launches first biogas solution DIGEST P3

Submitted by aeadmin on Thu, 03/30/2017 - 00:00

[DUBLIN, Ireland] – As fossil fuels deplete at astounding rates, biogas production is fast becoming an alternative source of economic and renewable energy. Alltech’s new product, DIGEST P3, improves the profitability of anaerobic digestion by optimising biogas productivity. DIGEST P3 is an enzyme complex produced by the breakdown of organic matter through a process called solid state fermentation, with production similar to that of yeast fermentation. Since Alltech has nearly 40 years’ experience in the fermentation of yeast for both the animal health and brewing industries, biogas fermentation is a logical next chapter for the company. Through mastery of solid state fermentation techniques, Alltech can produce enzymes economically and pass this cost savings along to customers.

“This is exciting. This is why I love what I do,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech. “We have taken our expertise and decades of knowledge in fermentation and applied them to the development of DIGEST P3. Remember, efficiency on the farm is what we are experts in. Alltech is all about adding value and efficiency and bringing sustainable solutions to market. Dealing with waste, while at the same time producing renewable energy, is simply another way we are using innovative and ground-breaking technologies to solve our customers’ issues.”

DIGEST P3 works with methane-generating microflora to help break down feedstock components previously inaccessible through digestion. This enhanced feed breakdown allows for more readily available energy and protein for the microflora, resulting in additional biogas volumes from the same amount of feed input. DIGEST P3 allows for flexibility in feedstock formulation through the inclusion of byproducts and alternative raw materials.

“We are working with customers to optimise the flexibility offered by this technology,” said Niall Brennan, biogas project manager at Alltech. “We are seeing some customers reduce their feedstock inputs and maintain their gas outputs. It is very encouraging to see the range of benefits DIGEST P3 offers Alltech customers.”

Alltech has just completed a research trial with Harper Adams University in England to identify optimum performance-enhancing additives. The trial was run utilising DIGEST P3 in commercial plants across Europe. In the trial, DIGEST P3’s additional feed breakdown led to increased biogas production, reduced feed costs, reduced power consumption and uplifts in operating profit.

“Since implementing DIGEST P3, many of our customers have witnessed significant improvement in substrate efficiency,” said Brennan. “This allows our customers to decrease the amount of substrates they input each day, yet maintain a consistent energy output.”

For more information on DIGEST P3, please visit go.alltech.com/digest-p3 and stay connected through Twitter and Facebook.

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<p>Alltech is now working with customers to optimise the flexibility offered by biogas production as an alternative source of economic and renewable energy. Alltech has developed DIGEST P3, an enzyme complex which improves the profitability of anaerobic digestion by optimising biogas productivity. </p>

A digital farming future

Submitted by aeadmin on Thu, 03/30/2017 - 00:00

An interview with David Hunt

The following is an edited transcript of our interview with David Hunt, CEO and co-founder of Cainthus. Cainthus is a machine-vision company specializing in health analytics for crop and livestock.

Tell us a little bit about why digitizing agriculture is important and what the potential is.

How we got into all of this is, we looked at what was going on in the agriculture world. My brother and I got extremely concerned about how, if we keep on farming in our “green revolution” style agriculture of monocultures plus chemical input, we are effectively going to kill our planet. We realized that we need to make things far more efficient, and farm in more environmentally friendly ways, in order to stave off what currently looks like an inevitability at the moment.

We then said, “What’s the best way to go about doing this?” Despite coming from an agriculture background, I didn’t realize the sheer absence of measurement that was at the commercial field or commercial livestock level. We realized if you want to improve agriculture, first of all you need to start measuring things. Then, once you can measure things, you can work out how to improve them and then ultimately that will hopefully lead to a better system.

I am very much a science fiction fan, and one of the things that always excited me as a child was the concept of robots working in farms and fields. When we started out on this journey, it was all toward the view of what we needed to do to get robots into our fields. One of the things we found out was, a robot is actually only as good as the data that feeds it. If you have an absence of data and an absence of measurement in agriculture, then the robots are never going to be there.

My personal opinion is, we will never be able to move away from monocultures until we have on-demand precision harvesting, which probably needs to be performed by robots, given the cost in increased human labor. When we went looking at what was the best way to systematically capture commercial field scale data in a manner that would be affordable to the farmer, we couldn’t get beyond the fact that digital imaging was going to be the way to do it. Camera technology is increasing at an exponential level at the moment. We only just got HD TVs and they are talking about 4K TVs, ultra HD, 8K TVs, etc. It’s that technology, and how cheap it is becoming, that’s enabling us to use drones to get highly precise images of what’s going on in our fields, far beyond the capability of what we can see with the human eye. One of the big concepts that I think people on farms need to understand, particularly crop farms, when it comes to drones: The drone is incidental and is simply the best current delivery device we have for getting one centimeter per pixel resolution, which is the minimum requirement in my opinion to spot what’s going on in a farm.

Tell me about some of the ways that you want to take that visual information. What would be the practical application? What are some of the things you have in mind?

Stand counts are something very useful we can do today. One of the biggest decisions a farmer makes every year is when they plant a field and the crops start emerging. If areas in the field do not emerge, well, what do I do about it? When you can count every individual plant in a field, you can make a data-driven decision as to whether it makes financial sense to re-sow or simply do nothing. I know enough farmers to know how difficult it is for a farmer to sit on their hands and do nothing when they are looking at a big bare patch in the middle of their field. Financially speaking, when it comes to your profit margin, it may actually be the best decision to simply do nothing. Introducing data-driven decision to agriculture, via increased digital measurement, is what enables you to do things like that.

Another application we have: Crop maturity analytics is something we can do today. The whole point of that is, when you ask farmers when they harvest their fields, it is generally they are afraid of bad weather coming, so they are going to harvest before the bad weather. If they see the neighbor out or the local agronomist tells them to do it, very little of it is based on data. I heard Aidan Connolly make a great point that today we farm based on what we see happening in our fields or what we see happening with our animals. Increasingly, as agriculture becomes more digitized, we are going to start farming data. We will look at what the data feedback is coming off our farm, and we will be making decisions on our farming activity based on that.

You talked about the importance of getting to a sustainable form of agriculture. What are some of the problems that we have, the way we are farming currently? What’s the potential risk for not dealing with it?

The potential risk of not dealing with it is our planet dies. That doesn’t mean humans will go extinct or anything like that; it just means that this planet won’t be a very nice place to live. Elon Musk is doing everything he can to get to Mars, but I’m not sure that’s going to be much nicer.

When we look at the principal risks that can be dealt with by using digital technologies, number one is our out-of-control nitrogen cycle. Currently, we are spending $140 billion dollars annually on nitrogen fertilizer. Depending on the target plant, 17 to 26 percent of that is being used by the target plant and the rest is being taken up by weeds, getting locked into the soil, or going as runoff into our waterways. We have an inefficiency loop in terms of our nitrogen fertilizer. The difficulty with that in terms of an environmental perspective is, unfortunately, nitrogen fertilizer does a lot of damage to our soil. We are in a situation where we’re putting in more and more fertilizer to get the same results. The only way we are going to break out of that vicious cycle is by getting technology that allows us to apply fertilizer and other chemical inputs on-demand when appropriate to do so, as opposed to just doing blanket hit-and-hope spraying as we do today.

Will the application in the future be more directly just to the plant’s root system, or do you think there will be more ways to deliver it more efficiently so it’s not covering the whole field?

I really can’t see beyond using robotic applications. DJI Drones has already released a robotic sprayer that can spray sixty acres per hour at $15,000. One of the things we can do is spot very early where there is a problem in your field. Then you identify the problem, and you can send in your precision sprayer to spray the area in the field when it is only impacting a couple of square meters, as opposed to having to spray the entire field when you see it with your own eyes.

How do you visually, with a camera, determine where you need nitrogen? I would assume that’s based on plant growth or color?

Nitrogen application is not something we can do with visual technology today in a manner that is affordable to a farmer. The best sort of sensor tech to use, to identify where you need nitrogen, is hyperspectral. That is way too expensive to be using at farm level currently. The other thing is, if you do decide to spend the money on something like hyperspectral and look at it at the start of the year, that is only so useful, because your requirements are going to change throughout the growing season. For technology to actually make a meaningful impact, it needs to be cheap enough that you can use it consistently throughout the growing season so you can apply inputs as and when needed by the plant.

How will you make It cheaper?

If you look at RGB cameras, which are like the cameras in your smartphone or a normal camera, they are getting incredibly cheap, incredibly quickly. Again, so cheap that you have a camera included in your smartphone for free that a professional photographer would have killed for ten years ago. Hyperspectral is the same; the underlying drivers of the cost of that technology are the same for RGB. The reason hyperspectral is so expensive is that an RGB camera looks at three spectra, red, green and blue, and hyperspectral looks at two hundred spectra. Your underlying data cost is obviously a large multiple of the cost associated with an RGB camera, not to mention the cost of the sensor itself.

I think you mentioned, aside from the nitrogen cycle, two other big issues with agriculture. Can you talk about those a little bit?

Number one, we really need to stop using pesticides as much as we do, because obviously that indiscriminately kills all sorts of things, not just the target pest species. Also, we need to stop farming in monocultures. As I said, one of the technologies we have already developed is precision. We can spot on a grain-by-grain basis when a crop is mature and ready to be harvested. When you can do precision on-demand harvesting, that will enable you to get away from your combine harvester green revolution paradigm, where you have to harvest an entire field in a couple of hours. If you can plant many different species of plants in one field and harvest them on demand when appropriate, that’s a far more environmentally friendly way to farm. In theory, it should also be a more profitable way for a farmer to farm. They are not beholden to the commodity markets in an individual crop. They have greater resilience to commodity markets, certainly, because they have many different crops.

One of the other things farmers should also be aware of in the future is there is a big trend creeping in that bio-suitability is arguably the best way to grow things. What I mean by that is, what did nature intend to grow in the area where your farm happens to be? The more you try to force something to grow where nature didn’t intend it to grow, the more chemical inputs and artificial methodologies you are going to need to make that happen. One of the things I think that farmers need to consider in the future is, what should we actually be farming here? What nature intended for us to farm here is going to minimize how many inputs we need to make it happen.

There are also going to be more exotic types of farming available to us in the near future. Solar panels are a great example. How many farmers in semi-arid regions would actually be better off having solar farms rather than crop or livestock farms? Similarly, there is a chance we are going to see algae farming developing, so you know if you have a high level of solar activity, you are going to be better off farming algae than farming crops or livestock. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know we are going to have far more options as to what we do with our land as we move further into the future.

You mentioned alternative ways to manufacture commodities like milk.

Yeah. If you look on a long enough time horizon, we can already see emerging trends. We are starting to create agents of nutritional complexity, as opposed to biological agents of nutritional complexity. What I mean by a biological agent of nutritional complexity is, well, an example of one is a cow. You feed a cow grass, you get milk and beef from that animal when you have just fed it grass. That’s what I mean by an agent of nutritional complexity.

We are already starting to see the emergence of synthetic meat. There is synthetic milk, which is a bio-fermentation process including a type of genetically modified yeast that, when you feed it sugars, it excretes something that is molecularly identical to milk rather than excreting alcohol.

The other big one is algae. Alltech’s heterotrophic algae facility never ceases to amaze me. I just think it’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve seen. On the best land in the world, if you get 4.5 tons of wheat out of it a year, you are doing well. If you put a heterotrophic algae plant on the worst land in the world, you can get 60 tons of that stuff every nineteen days. The parallel I draw to this is, it’s not dissimilar to where we were in the energy market in the ‘70s. We could see that the future of energy was more than likely going to be nuclear plus solar plus batteries, but we had to make our fossil fuels system more efficient and less environmentally harmful in order to buy us time to get there. We are just about there in the energy market now. When I look at agriculture, I think there is no doubt that if we want to feed 10 billion people by 2050 without destroying our planet, we are going to need stuff like nuclear and solar that give us what we need without depleting our natural resources. I would be arguing that what we are currently trying to do is make a green revolution and agriculture more efficient and more environmentally friendly until we get to such a point that we can actually create edible, tasty and nutritious food that comes out of processes like bio-fermentation, such as synthetic milk and algae.

The other big outlier in that, as well, is insect meal. There is a big question of whether synthetic meat will ever be viable for reasons that are quite long so I’m not going to go into them here. But the other big issue with synthetic meat is, insects are able to convert base nutrients into more complex proteins at an eighty percent efficiency level. So any synthetic meat is going to have to beat how efficient insects are already. I get a little frustrated by the lack of adoption of insects in our industry, because they are such a suitable food for chickens and fish as well as humans. The thing I like to say is, when we eat insects from the sea, they command a price premium and are considered a delicacy. Insects that are found on land are considered disgusting, which I really don’t get.

That’s a really interesting point, because if you take a really good close look at a shrimp or a crayfish, they are very much like an insect or closely related. Do you eat any land-based insects?

I have. They are not that widely available in Ireland or the United States. I have no issue eating them whatsoever.

This is where stuff gets a little bit disgusting, but one of the other big things that’s important about heterotrophic algae and insect meal is, you can actually use human faeces to fuel those technologies. Scientifically speaking, there is no problem with that whatsoever, but when people think about that, even though it makes tremendous environmental and ecological sense, that really turns people’s stomachs. If we want to have 10 billion people on this planet, these are the types of solutions we need to think about. We need to make better use of our waste. If we can use our waste to make food with it, I can’t think of a better use case than that.

Maybe a starting point is to feed animals with insect protein.

I wouldn’t expect us to feed human waste to insects, then eat the insects. When I’m talking about doing that, I mean feed the insects to chickens; then we will eat the chickens. Even feed one group of insects the human waste and feed those insects to other insects, and then we can process those insects with a lot of flavorings and hopefully people will eat them then. It’s very difficult to predict the way these things will go when it’s something quite so disgusting.

One last question: How did you name your company, and what does the name mean?

We completely over-thought the name, as is our habit. I did Latin for six years, and canthus is the Latin word for the corner of your eye. In Caesar’s propaganda that he used to send back to Rome, he was always winning battles that no one else could win, because he saw things out of the corner of his eye that no one else saw. Then there is a huge artificial intelligence (AI) component to what we do as well, so Cainthus is part canthus and AI.

David Hunt spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference. Audio recordings of most talks, including David's, are now available on the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

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Dr. Aoife Lyons on DHA, Brain Development and Recent Research

Submitted by aeadmin on Thu, 03/30/2017 - 00:00

Alltech's Dr. Aoife Lyons is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in children, brain development and ADHD. In this interview, she discussed with David Butler the importance of docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, and its role in brain function and development. Dr. Lyons highlighted some of the exciting new research that is being done to examine the connection between DHA, sleep quality and attention span in children. We also discussed the pros and cons of fish oil versus algae as a source of DHA.

A transcript of the interview follows:

This is David Butler for Alltech, and I’m here with Dr. Aoife Lyons. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, please?

I’m a licensed clinical psychologist, and my specialty is in children and brain development. I ran a children’s clinic in Chicago for about 14 years where we saw all sorts of children. Many had Attention Deficit Disorder, which is more commonly known as ADHD, and we saw a lot of learning disabilities as well.

How long have you been with Alltech?

I have been with Alltech as a consultant for about 12 years, full-time now for about two years.

Very good. Tell us a little about omega-3 fatty acids and why they are important.

Well, DHA, or those fatty acids that you are talking about, are really, really important to support central nervous systems. Your central nervous system is in charge of your brain. It’s in charge of executive functioning, which is things like time management, being able to organize your time, being able to prioritize, having impulse control, things like this. It’s very, very important in children to have DHA to support that brain development, which is happening so rapidly. Also, it’s really important to have DHA through the lifetime, in particular in old age. There is a lot of literature out there that shows supplementation with DHA helps support memory function in patients with Alzheimer’s.

So, you talk about DHA and omega-3’s. I think it can be kind of confusing for people when they are looking for supplements and thinking about their diet. What is the difference?

Oftentimes when you go to Whole Foods or another health food store, you will see omega-3 fatty acids, and those are coming from fish oil, but when we think about where did the fish get their oil to begin with, it’s from algae. The more pure form of DHA would be from that algae. Alltech has several algae facilities that we’re developing at this point and lots of different uses that we are hoping for. My interest, of course, is in the cognitive development of children. I thought, wow, Alltech is doing this research with DHA and algae, how can we bridge the gap between what Alltech offers scientifically and what my personal interests are, which is in the health of children.

There is a lot of research into the importance of DHA, of course, and I’m sure that you have read several studies on it. What are the current focus areas, and what are some of the results?

Interestingly enough, most of the studies have been in 2012 and 2013, so this is really a cutting edge in terms of scientific research, into psychology and interbrain development. One study did supplementation through about 300 mg of DHA in children for 16 weeks, and then they asked the parents and the teachers, before and after, to rate the children on different behaviors, such as impulsivity, concentration, attention, these sorts of things. They did see improvement in children after the 16 weeks of supplementation.

What is more interesting is that for children with learning disabilities, it seems like the effects of DHA are greater than just more typically developing children. People say, why is this? Again, this is really cutting-edge research. It’s all very very new. There is one interesting study, I believe it was in 2013, that looked at children’s sleep cycles and children with ADHD in particular. They found for all children, supplementation with the DHA for this 16-week cycle, they hooked them up to sleep machines and the whole thing, and what they found is that children were getting on average 57-58 more minutes of sleep per night. Now, this does not mean that the children were in bed for almost an hour more per night. It just meant that they had less episodes of waking up during the night. And then they looked at the children’s attention after the supplementation, and they found that the attention and also their academic skills had improved.

Sometimes people will say to me, of course academic skills are going to improve after about four months, of course we’re going to expect reading to be better, and I think something that most people wouldn’t realize is that the tests that we give children, the psychological and academic tests, they are normed to the month so that children who are 7 years, 1 month old, would be compared to children who are 7 years, 1 month. So a child then who is 7 years, 5 months, is compared to other children of the exact same age. So, when we see improvement in reading, it is a true improvement.

That sounds like a pretty dramatic difference. Almost an hour of extra quality sleep, and I’m sure anybody that has kids knows that they're easier to get along with if they have better sleep. So what is the next step?

Well, again, this is very new research, and a lot of the studies that have been done were done in England. There hasn’t been a lot of literature coming out of the US yet. Small-scale studies, specific to schools or to clinical groups, maybe in a pediatrician’s clinic. What we need are larger-scale studies so we can piece out what exactly is going on with the DHA supplementation and the improved academics and the improved attention. I think that increased knowledge in the public about the benefits of DHA, exactly what it does in the brain to support the central nervous system development, is really important.

You know, when you think about it, we’re saying fish oil, and it could have easily been called snake oil many years ago. So I think educating the public is important, so that they are more on board in terms of having their children take part in these sorts of studies. I know for myself, I am taking the fish oil. I know whenever I had researchers Becky Timmons, she takes a lot of fish oil. Her daughter also took fish oil when she was studying for her law school exams.

So I think the larger-scale studies will be important, and I would love to see cross-cultural studies. I would love to see if children, say, in Japan, where the diet is more heavily based on fish, see if those children have better attention and concentration than the U.S. children, and is that due to their diet, or is that due to the cultural reasons and expectations that parents have for their child’s behavior?

Do you have any plans for your own research coming up?

Well, I do, actually. I would love to do another study. A lot of those studies that have been done have been using omega-3 fish oil. I would love to do a study that is just looking at the DHA, just at the algae. We have plans that are underway. We are just in the very early stages at this point. I would love to do a larger scale study with DHA from algae supplementation in a bigger group of school children with the same model as some of the other studies that have been done, but a bigger group of children so we can piece out, does this work for all children? Does this work with kids with ADHD? Does it work better with kids with learning disabilities? So there is a lot of research that can be done. I’m to the point where I have found a couple of schools that are interested in this project, but it wouldn’t get underway until probably a year from now.

Let’s suppose that you have two routes for supplementing the DHA and you could either take fish oil or you could take algae. If you had an equal quantity of DHA either way, would there still be advantages to algae? Why would that be preferable over fish oil?

Well, in terms of doing research with children, there are all sorts of methodological things that you have to think about. Taking the fish oil capsules is not exactly a pleasant thing, sometimes if you haven’t had breakfast it can make you feel a little sick to your stomach, but we do know that there are some gummy bear algae based DHA products available out there, so that would be one way to go. Try to make it a treat for the kid.

If we’re trying to increase the number of people that are improving their diet with DHA, would algae or fish oil be more sustainable method for that?

It’s a lot more sustainable to grow a lot of algae than it is to grow the algae to feed the fish to farm the fish. It’s kind of just going to the source instead of taking it one more step.

And it also doesn’t taste like fish.

Correct.

Thank you very much, and good luck with your research. I hope we have the chance to talk to you about that soon.

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The poultry producer’s war room: Lessons on disease preparedness

Submitted by msimpson on Wed, 03/29/2017 - 13:25
Dealing with disease in poultry production is challenging. This is, in part, because diseases that affect poultry species tend to find ways to constantly evolve, evading strategies to eradicate them. Genetic mutations, the emergence of new virulent strains, and changes in production practices and regulations on the use of therapeutic products create a scenario wherein producers need to identify innovative ways to deal with familiar challenges.
 
A recent example of the difficulty in dealing with changing diseases is the reemergence of histomoniasis, also known as blackhead disease, in turkeys raised in the U.S.
 
Histomoniasis is caused by a protozoan that can cause lesions in the ceca and liver of poultry. The disease can be very costly because it can make broilers more susceptible to coccidiosis, and it can lead to high mortality rates in turkeys.
 
Turkey producers in the U.S. had considered blackhead disease to be a problem of the past. In the 1940s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of arsenic-based drugs, which were very effective at preventing and treating blackhead disease.
 
A shakeup occurred in 2011 when the FDA concluded that, based on new research, these drugs could potentially leave traces of inorganic arsenic residue in the livers of chickens. Since inorganic arsenic compounds are highly toxic and harmful to human health, the FDA began phasing out these drugs from poultry production. By December 2015, nitarsone, the last available arsenic-based drug for use in food animals, was removed from the market, leaving producers exposed to blackhead disease for the first time in more than half a century.
 
Producers had become dependent on arsenic-based drugs because very little research on alternative solutions to histomoniasis was conducted. Now that these compounds are no longer available for use, turkey producers are being forced to develop new approaches in order to protect their birds.
 
With the Veterinary Feed Directive policy recently taking effect in the U.S., there are more restrictions being placed on antibiotics used in animal production. While these restrictions have yet to lead to banning preventative antibiotics, such as what was done with nitarsone, we have to consider what could happen if this were to become the case. If necrotic enteritis preventative drugs (e.g., bacitracin, virginiamycin, tylosin) were completely banned, we would have to adjust to a different gut health approach to prevent necrotic enteritis from impacting birds.
 
In a recent webinar for Alltech, Dr. Dennis Wages, professor of poultry health management at North Carolina State University, explained a program that has been helping producers address blackhead disease in this new production era. Wages’ control points include:
 
Building a defense against poultry diseases
 
Management control points:
  • Strong biosecurity protocols on-farm
  • Deworm poultry litter
  • Increase litter depth
  • Vectors control, such as pests and beetles
  • Cleaning and disinfecting equipment and facilities
 
Nutritional control points:
  • Phytogenic compounds
    • Essential oil blends and saponins
  • Organic acids
  • Yeast cell wall nutritional technologies
  • Combinations (plant extracts, essential oils, yeast carbohydrates and organic minerals)
The already difficult task of protecting flocks against disease is likely to become increasingly challenging, but producers can stay ahead of the game by being aware of and testing new management and nutritional technologies. Turkey producers in the U.S. learned from their blackhead disease experience, but it is likely that this story will repeat itself in another form in the future if the industry is not prepared.
 
Click on the video below to see our blackhead disease short story and learn how Alltech has been helping turkey producers overcome their challenges.
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The already difficult task of protecting flocks against disease is likely to become even more challenging, but poultry producers can stay ahead of the game by being aware of and testing new management and nutritional technologies.

Don't compromise your cows' fertility

Submitted by tgervis on Fri, 03/24/2017 - 15:05

A successful breeding season starts with early lactation management. Getting cows off to the best possible start in early lactation is critical on every dairy farm. During spring, it is essential to ensure that the nutrient intake of the cow is adequate to meet her needs. Poor management during this important stage can lead to reduced intakes and losses in body condition score (BCS), leading to fertility issues, which can have a significant impact on a dairy farm’s bottom line.

Three ways to optimize dairy cow fertility

1. Close the energy gap

In early lactation, cows will inevitably be in a negative energy balance, meaning they are not able to take in as much energy as they require because their peak milk yield occurs before their peak in dry matter intake. Therefore, they will lose a certain amount of condition. Managing cows appropriately can minimize BCS loss during this period. One way this can be done is by feeding a diet that will encourage intake and provide adequate energy.

Often in early lactation, European cows are in a situation where they are being fed grazed grass, grass silage and concentrates. This may be cost effective, but it is not ideal for rumen conditions.

2. Maximize immunity and health

Early lactation is typically a period of stress for the cow, as there are a number of physiological and nutritional changes during this time. It is critical to ensure she has an optimal immune status during early lactation in order to maximize fertility.

Some cows will have a higher risk of uterine infections due to retained placenta and metritis after calving. Uterine infections and ovarian problems will inevitably have an effect on fertility.

Trace minerals, such as selenium, play a key role in maintaining a healthy immune system in the calving period. Other trace minerals, such as copper, and major minerals, such as phosphorus, play key roles in ovulation and cycling; if there is a deficiency in either, the possibility of anoestrus becomes more likely.

Research has proven that feeding these trace minerals in their organic form — for example, Bioplex® Copper, Bioplex® Zinc and Sel-Plex®, an organic form of selenium from Alltech — leads to these minerals being better absorbed, stored and utilized by the animal.

3. Look after the rumen

The rumen is essentially the engine that drives the cow. The key to getting more from feed is to ensure that the rumen is working as efficiently as possible.

Increased nutrient absorption allows for more milk production and also reduces the need for the cow to take these valuable nutrients from its own body reserves. This depletion of body reserves lies at the core of cow health and infertility issues.

The rumen is not designed for abrupt changes, so it is recommended that cows are gradually introduced to grass in early lactation and, if possible, are brought in at night for the first seven to 10 days after calving. If turned out abruptly, it is likely that the cow’s grass intake will not be enough to meet her energy requirements. This will have a negative impact on her BCS. The increase in starch and sugar levels in the diet during this period will cause a decrease in the pH levels in the rumen.

The use of Yea-Sacc® from Alltech has been proven to promote a higher rumen pH when fed to cows on grass in early lactation (Al Ibrahim et al., University College Dublin, 2013).

Early lactation can be a challenging time for farmers, but implementing these management tips will give your herd the best chance of getting back in calf this spring.

Watch our “Don’t compromise on cow fertility” webinar for more tips on optimizing fertility.

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