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Mike Tokach, Joel DeRouchey, Jason Woodworth, Bob Goodband, Jordan Gebhardt, Kansas State University | November 11, 2021

So far, most manufacturers have heard that the shortage of L-lysine has affected prices and supply. The shortage is expected to continue for at least a few months until the first quarter of 2022. For those who have not signed a contract, the spot price has doubled or tripled. For those who signed the contract, the availability has been reduced as many manufacturers try to find additional L-lysine at a higher price on the open market.

How does this affect the diet formula? Producers should work with their nutritionists to determine the best response on their farm. In general, most manufacturers need to reduce the use of L-lysine. Whether it is because the product is not available or because the cost is too high, the end result of reducing use is the same.

Decreasing the incorporation rate of L-lysine will result in an increase in the incorporation of the intact protein source (ie, soybean meal). Pregnant sows and growing-finishing pigs can be fed much lower levels of L-lysine or no L-lysine without reducing performance. Due to excessive crude protein in the diet, nitrogen excretion will increase; however, the performance of pigs will not decrease. With the increase in the price of L-lysine, compared with the conventional combination of feed-grade amino acids (usually adding L-lysine (L-threonine, L-tryptophan, DL-methionine) in the diet) Soybean meal has become a cheaper option, and L-valine). As the price of L-lysine increases, these amino acids will drop in price one at a time until L-lysine becomes the only amino acid to be supplemented. Eventually, if the price of L-lysine becomes high enough, it will also be removed from the diet, increasing the content of soybean meal (or other protein sources) to meet all the amino acids the pig needs.

However, for nursery pigs and lactating sows, diets are usually formulated to have the highest levels of soybean meal. Therefore, adding soybean meal to these diets is not an ideal choice. Use other whole protein sources instead of soybean meal, but it may become too expensive, or the total protein in the diet may be more than needed. Therefore, producers want to keep the L-lysine available to them to ensure that they have enough products for the diets of nursery pigs and lactating sows.

What is the maximum feeding amount of soybean meal? The maximum incorporation rate of soybean meal depends on factors such as the health of the pig; however, healthy pigs can use large amounts of soybean meal in their diets without any problem. In gestating sows and most growing-finishing pig diets, cereals and soybean meal can fully meet the amino acid requirements if needed. For lactating sows, we tend to limit the addition rate of soybean meal to 30% of the diet. Once the diet contains more than 600 lb/ton of feed, feed intake will begin to decrease. For nursery pigs, this depends on the diet stage and how the soybean meal level increases when the pigs adapt to dry feed after weaning; however, we prefer to limit the maximum addition rate in the late nursery (pigs weighing more than 25 pounds) and early growth diets About 34% of the ration. Before 25 pounds of body weight, lower levels of soybean meal will be used in the diet.

How long will this problem last, and what is the end result? Currently, no one knows. Amino acid companies will hope to solve this problem to reduce the cost of L-lysine, because high L-lysine prices will reduce the use of all feed-grade amino acids. The sales of these amino acids are important to their profitability, and low L-lysine prices are necessary to promote the use of other amino acids.

Pig producers and feed mills will use more soybean meal and less corn, and change their diets to cope with L-lysine shortages. Whether these changes are sufficient to change soybean meal and corn prices remains to be seen.

The key points include reviewing all diets to ensure that L-lysine is used as economically as possible, and keeping available L-lysine for childcare and breastfeeding diets.

Source: Mike Tokach, Joel DeRouchey, Jason Woodworth, Bob Goodband, Jordan Gebhardt, Kansas State University, they are fully responsible for the information provided and they own the information. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any content contained in this information asset.

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