Chemical Composition and Amino Acid Digestibility of Soybean Meal Produced in the United States, China, Argentina, Brazil, or India.

An experiment was conducted to compare chemical composition and standardized ileal digestibility (SID) of AA in soybean meal (SBM) from 5 countries when fed to growing pigs. Five sources of SBM from China, Argentina, Brazil, and the U.S., and 4 sources from India were included in diets where SBM was the sole source of AA. An N-free diet was also used. Twenty-five barrows (initial BW: 30.53 ± 1.73 kg) were fitted with a T-cannula in the distal ileum and allotted to a 25 × 8 Youden square design with 25 diets and 8 periods. Data were analyzed using Proc Mixed in SAS. The model to compare chemical composition of SBM included country as fixed effect and source within country as random effect and the model to analyze SID of AA included country as the fixed effect, and pig and period as random effects. Results indicate that the concentration of CP was greater (P < 0.05) in SBM from Brazil and India (49.3 and 49.5%) than in SBM from China, Argentina, or the U.S. (45.1, 46.7, and 47.3%), but SBM from the U.S. contained more (P < 0.05) indispensable AA than SBM from China or Argentina. Indian SBM contained more (P < 0.05) trypsin inhibitor units than SBM from other countries. A greater (P < 0.05) SID of most AA was observed in SBM from the U.S. compared with SBM from Brazil, Argentina, and India (Table 1). There was less (P < 0.05) variability in SID values for AA among sources of SBM from the U.S. or Brazil than among sources from Argentina, China, or India. In conclusion, the SID of AA in SBM is dependent on the country where the SBM is produced.

Table 1. Standardized ileal digestibility of AA in soybean meal from different countries

Item	China	Argentina	Brazil	U.S.	India	SEM	P-value
Arg	96.8ab	95.6c	95.6c	96.9a	95.9bc	0.49	0.003
His	93.5a	92.1b	92.1b	93.8a	92.3b	0.61	0.002
Ile	92.6ab	91.6b	91.7b	93.4a	91.5b	0.59	0.004
Leu	92.3ab	91.0c	91.2bc	92.9a	90.9c	0.61	0.001
Lys	92.1ab	90.0c	90.6bc	92.9a	90.8bc	0.79	0.002
Met	94.4ab	93.5bc	93.6abc	94.7a	92.7c	0.54	0.007
Phe	92.5ab	90.9c	91.6bc	93.0a	91.4bc	0.59	0.001
Thr	90.2a	88.5b	88.4b	90.8a	88.2b	0.82	0.004
Trp	93.7ab	93.0b	92.6bc	94.3a	91.7c	0.56	<0.001
Val	90.6ab	89.3bc	89.0c	91.4a	88.9c	0.74	0.002

^a-c Means within a row lacking a common superscript letter are different (P < 0.05).