Lightweight wheat has a bad reputation and few buyers want to tangle
with it.
But “it’s got more value than what the millers and brewers give it,”
said Lee Whittington of the Prairie Swine Centre in Saskatoon.
“As far as a pig’s concerned, there’s still a lot of energy in it.”
Millers have little interest in wheat that weighs less than 60 pounds
per bushel because of its perceived low level of starch.
The same attitude is common with livestock feeders, who often believe
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that wheat weighing below 58 lb. per bu. is nothing but fibre and
doesn’t contain enough energy to feed an animal.
Livestock feeders need to be careful with low bushel weight wheat,
Whittington said, but they should not ignore it, especially because
there might be a lot of cheap lightweight wheat across the Prairies
this winter.
“Bushel weight is a pretty poor indication of the quality of wheat or
barley,” said Whittington.
Light bushel weight wheat does have more fibre than heavier wheat, but
there can be substantial energy too. The swine centre began studying
light bushel weight grains in 1993, after an early August snowstorm
damaged much of the prairie crop. Feeding trials showed surprising
results.
“We had bushel weights everywhere from 38 to 60 lb.,” said Whittington.
“There was absolutely no relation between the bushel weight and the
average daily gain of the pig.”
Very low bushel weights tend to reveal low energy levels because the
first part of the grain head to develop is the fibrous outer shell,
which is then filled by nutrients. Low bushel weights tend to occur
when something limits the filling of the kernel.
Whittington said this doesn’t mean the energy level is too low to feed
pigs, but to use it, feeders need to test the fibre and then calculate
the energy level of the wheat. The Prairie Swine Centre has a
fibre-energy formula. For a link to the centre’s website, go to
www.producer.com and click on news links.
“As long as we know what we are dealing with, we can formulate around
it.”
Some rations don’t need high energy levels, such as a gestation ration,
Whittington said. Lightweight wheat easily fits into this ration.
But a pig feeder would probably use less lightweight wheat in a grower
ration, which is fed to feeder pigs. And in a starter ration, which is
fed to recently weaned pigs, the feeder might not be able to use any at
all.
The key to using low bushel weight wheat is to take pig nutrition
seriously. If a producer knows how much energy, amino acids and
vitamins a pig needs, “he can get there by a number of different
routes,” Whittington said. “At times you can take advantage of some
pretty deeply discounted wheat because it appears to have no value (to
some people).”
Wheat is less commonly used in the cattle feeding business because it
is harder on a bovine’s gut. But it can still be used as part of a
ration. With low bushel weight wheat likely to be the cheapest feed
source on the Prairies this winter, many farmers are likely to consider
it, said John McKinnon of the Western Beef Development Centre in
Saskatoon.
“Sprouted grain is very usable. It’s probably your cheapest source of
energy this year,” said McKinnon.
“Until bushel weight drops off markedly, you don’t see a big drop in
the performance of cattle. What you see is slightly higher intakes.
They eat a little bit more but gain the same.”
McKinnon said Agriculture Canada studies have shown that 56 lb. wheat
can still contain 102 percent of the energy of a bushel of barley, and
even 40 lb. wheat contains 90 percent of a barley bushel’s energy.
Sprouted wheat may also be affordable and should be considered this
year.
“People think there should be a big discount on sprouted grains just
because they perceive that some of the carbohydrates have been used up,
but even with severely sprouted grain the performance does not suffer.”
The challenge for cattle feeders is to use wheat in a way that will not
hurt the cattle. Levels that are too high can cause liver abscesses or
put cattle off feed.
McKinnon said producers planning to introduce wheat into cattle rations
should do so slowly, adding 10 percent increments into the diet every
few days, and should not push it beyond half of the grain portion of
the diet.
“With cattle, you don’t want to do anything suddenly,” he said.
“Always give them time to adapt.”
Both McKinnon and Whittington said farmers need to test for fusarium
and other toxins in light feed.
