Associations of the variation in the porcine myogenin gene with muscle fibre characteristics, lean meat production and meat quality traits

Posted in: Meat Quality by admin on January 1, 2009 | No Comments

Pig breeding is aimed at improving lean meat production ability as well as meat quality, and muscle fibre characteristics may be important for enhancing these traits. Therefore, new molecular markers have been demanded for selecting lean meat production ability and meat quality in live animals. Myogenin belongs to the MyoD gene family, and is a candidate gene responsible for muscle fibre characteristics. We identified a new single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) site in the 5′ upstream region of the myogenin gene (nucleotides C and T). A total of 252 pigs of three breeds were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism using BspCNI. Additionally, they were genotyped for the previously detected MspI site in the 3¢-flanking region (alleles A and B). The CCBB diplotype had the highest frequency over breeds, followed by TCBB and CCAB. The other diplotypes were not found in studied pigs. Association analysis performed for the markers found that the TCBB diplotype has desirable effects on the total number of fibres (p < 0.002), fibre cross-sectional area (p < 0.06), and loin eye area (p < 0.001) than the other diplotypes. Moreover, the diplotype had the highest muscle pH value (p < 0.07) and all meat quality traits were near the upper limit of the normal range as a reddish pink, firm and non-exudative (RFN) pork. Therefore, we suggest that selection for the myogenin diplotypes could improve total muscle fibre number, size and lean meat production ability with good meat quality.

For more information the full article can be found at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1439-0388/issues

Could manure heat and power farms?

Posted in: Energy by admin on | No Comments

ARS engineers at the ARS Coastal Plains Soil, Water and Plant Research Center in South Carolina are studying how to use a technique called wet gasification to turn wet manure slurry into energy-rich gases and produce water. The ARS team developed a patented cost-benefit model of a wet gasification technology to calculate estimated returns, and concluded that liquid swine wastes can generate a net energy potential comparable to brown coal. The team is also investigating methods for producing a type of charcoal – called green coal – from manure. Green coal can be burned on the farm for energy or transported offsite to coal plants for fuel. It can also be added to the soil, a practice that would reduce greenhouse gases by permanently sequestering carbon in the soil in the form of the green coal.

Medium Term Outlook for Canadian Agriculture International and Domestic Markets

Posted in: Economics by admin on | No Comments

The purpose of this document is to describe the features of the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) Medium Term Outlook for Canadian Agriculture covering the period 2008 to 2018. The outlook is an attempt to outline a plausible future of the international and domestic agri-food sectors. It serves as a benchmark for discussion and scenario analysis.
The outlook makes specific assumptions and outlines their implications. Since it assumes that policies remain unchanged from existing legislation, the outlook is not a forecast of future events. In particular there are no assumptions made regarding the outcome of the Doha round of trade negotiations. Finally, it is assumed that there will be no significant animal disease outbreaks or unusual climatic conditions over the period of the outlook. The outlook was produced with two econometric models of agricultural markets based upon information available in November 2008.
The AGLINK/COSIMO model of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was used to produce the international outlook and the AAFC Food and Agriculture Regional Model (FARM) was used for the national outlook. The medium term assumptions used and published by the OECD/FAO in the Agricultural Outlook 2008-2017 are by in large maintained in the AAFC’s outlook but updated to reflect short term price forecasts produced and released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in November 2008. The November 2008 macroeconomic forecast published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was
also incorporated in the outlook and in particular a 32% reduction in the crude oil price in 2009. AAFC assumed that 3 years will be necessary before the crude oil price returns to the level used in the OECD/FAO medium term outlook. The outlook for crop year 2008-09 and 2009-10 may not coincide with the forecast published in AAFC January Bi-Weekly Bulletin because this publication takes into account more recent information. The Canadian macro-economic forecasts for 2008 to 2013 are from the Conference Board of Canada outlook published in December 2008 except for the crude oil price and the exchange rate in 2009, 2010 and 2011 which reflects the IMF outlook. The average year-toyear percentage change over that period is used for the remainder of the outlook period for each macro-economic variables used in FARM.

Pig-bitin' mad

Posted in: Economics by admin on | No Comments

Dynamics of virus excretion via different routes in pigs experimentally infected with classical swine fever virus strains of high, moderate or low virulence

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This study provides quantitative data on excretion of CSFV over time from pigs infected with a highly, moderately or low virulent strain. This study highlights the crucial role chronically infected pigs may play in the transmission of CSFV. Furthermore, it demonstrates the importance of discriminating between strains and the clinical appearance of infection when using excretion data for modelling.

For more information the full article can be found at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03781135

A reverse vaccinology approach to swine dysentery vaccine development

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This study aimed to use a reverse vaccinology approach to identify B. hyodysenteriae proteins for use as recombinant vaccine components. It was found that the pigs developed antibodies to the proteins, and following the experiment only one developed swine dysentery compared to five of nine non-vaccinated control pigs.

For more information the full article can be found at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03781135

Measurement of pig claw pressure distribution

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The change in pressure distribution when an animal with claw problems tries to move leads to specific lesions at the claw sole, which tends to reach the soft tissue causing pain and lack of welfare. Older animals (finishing pigs and sows) are particularly subject to locomotion problems caused by claw injuries, as the use of fogging to reduce heat stress and close contact with urine and manure residues on the floor can reduce claw hardness. The objectives of this research were to simulate in laboratory, the static claw pressure distributions of pigs standing on a hard surface compared to rubber flooring; and to measure the dynamic effects in the field, using live animals with normal gait using a piezoelectric sensing device and to correlate the regions of the claw under most stress to the defects frequently found in commercial pig production. It was found that the rear outer claws are severely overloaded when compared to rear inner claws and front
claws (irrespective of digits) and that is associated with the reported pathologies found in the literature (cracks and sole
ulcers). Also, that applying cushioning through the use of rubber mattresses may reduce the overloading of claws, mostly the rear outer claws, and this may prevent defects from occurring.

For more information the full article can be found at  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/15375110

Statistically Significant Efficiency Testing of HEPA Filters

Posted in: Air Filtration, Pork Insight Articles by admin on December 19, 2008 | No Comments

HEPA filter manufacturers must ensure that their filters are tested accurately and must do so in a cost efficient way. This study describes tests that tried to determine the minimum time required to provide statistically significant efficiencies of HEPA filters using a test system that is currently used in the production of the filters. 300 filters were tested. Poisson distribution was used to describe the variations and to find the upper and lower levels with 95% confidence. The results found that it takes 90 seconds for the test to ensure that a filter has an efficiency of 99.99% or higher at 95% confidence. For a new test system, software is suggested to calculate the confidence limits of the filters efficiency after each test cycle and then determine determine weather to continue testing.

Filters, filters, filters: Which one to choose?

Posted in: Air Filtration, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 27, 2008 | No Comments

There are many different filters being produced by many companies around the world. This can make the decision to choose just one difficult. Scott Dee has written in this Pigletter about some of the filters he prefers. The scale for filters is called a MERV (minimum efficiency reported value)  which is a measure of how effective a filter is. The higher the MERV ranking the better the filter is, most filters used in research and in commercial barns are MERV 16, which is capable of stopping all particles over 0.3 microns in size. Although the PRRS particles are 0.05 microns, they travel on larger particles of dust or liquid that are usually 0.5-100  microns in size, making a MERV 16 filter effective. Dee has found through his research that a filter called Camfill Farr by the company Filtration Systems Inc. out performs any other filters from North America and the world. One drawback is that they can be expensive and may impede air flow if they are not a good fit with a barns current air flow system. Another suggestion by Dee is filters made by a company called Noveko. The unique thing about these filters is that they are coated with chemicals so that when contaminated particles move through the system they are killed. Understanding of filters is important for ridding a barn of PRRS, but sanitation should not be overlooked at all levels of production.

Essential oils as alternatives to dietary antibiotics: Microencapsulation for effectively delivering the oils to pig guts

Posted in: Ontario Pork, Pork Insight Articles by admin on November 26, 2008 | No Comments

Some essential oils have strong anti-microbial activity, however they are less effective when they are delivered in vivo. When they enter the body they tend to spread out and do not target the troubled areas. The objective of this study was to try and find an different effective method for microencapsulation and to evaluate the effect of encapsulation on the antimicrobial activity of essential oils in vitro. Several experiments have been carried out in the past years that address these objectives. Some findings from these experiments are essential oils with low water solubility such as carvacrol can be encapsulated with a high loading efficiency by single extrusion method with alginate as the delivering material. Microencapsulation of carvacrol by Ca-alginate did not compromise its antimicrobial activity. Microencapsulation may effectively prevent the loss of essential oils in the upper gastrointestinal tract thus increase the proportion of essential oils delivered to pig intestine. The paper concludes by saying that carvacrol encapsulation is ready to be tested in infected pigs.