Saskatoon, SK., April 6, 2005: Dr. Denise Beaulieu, Research Assistant at Prairie Swine Centre Inc., recently received one of only two awards presented annually by the U.S. National Pork Board at the Midwest Animal Science meetings held in Des Moines, Iowa. The annual National Pork Board award recognizes innovative ideas, scientifically based, that have relevance to the pork industry. The award, based on abstracts submitted to the American Society of Animal Science meetings, Midwest section, was earned for research on the use of phytase enzyme to improve phosphorus utilization from feed and reduce phosphorus in the manure.

Dr. Beaulieu accepted the award on behalf of her research team, which included M.R. Bedford (Zymetrics, UK), and J.F. Patience (Prairie Swine Centre). The winning abstract describes two experiments conducted at Prairie Swine Centre which showed that a novel enzyme developed by Zymetrics, Inc.(UK) decreased phosphorus output in the manure by almost 40% when fed to weanling pigs consuming a soy-barley and corn based diet that was intentionally formulated to be lower than typical levels in total phosphorus. The lower formulation met all requirements for piglet growth due to the increased utilization of the mineral made possible by the phytase enzyme in the diet. Environmentally, the benefits also included a similar magnitude of decrease in inorganic phosphorus in the manure, which is the form of phosphorus most susceptible to leaching through the soil.

Of importance to farmers and nutritionists, it was confirmed that when using the phytase enzyme, the dietary ratio of calcium to phosphorus should be at or below 1.7:1 to realize the full benefit of the enzyme.

Prairie Swine Centre Inc., located in Saskatoon, is a non-profit research corporation affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan, and is recognized globally for its contributions to practical, applied science in pork production in the disciplines of Nutrition, Engineering and Animal Behaviour.