 To help lay the groundwork for the ethanol industry, the Nebraska Corn Board has sponsored a significant amount of research and educational efforts focused on one of corn ethanol’s chief co-products: distillers grains.
As the Corn Board-sponsored research demonstrated – and livestock producers verified – distillers grains makes an outstanding feed ingredient. This is especially true for cattle operations, which can take wet distillers grains directly from an ethanol plant and feed them to finishing cattle at 50 percent or more of the ration (dry matter basis). This wet product saves the ethanol plant drying costs and is simply an outstanding value-added feed ingredient for cattle. In fact, cattle love to eat it and grow well on it – helping to reduce the overall cost of gain and giving Nebraska cattle producers a leg up on the competition.
Of course, beef cattle aren’t the only animals that perform well on distillers grains. Dairy cattle, swine and poultry can all consume differing levels of the product. In addition, new technology will allow ethanol plants to produce several different feed products by changing how they process the corn. This may increase the value and feeding levels of ethanol co-products for many species.
The Nebraska Corn Board has also sponsored research that focuses on the co-products of the corn wet milling industry, particularly corn gluten feed and corn gluten meal. Like with distillers grains, corn gluten is a great feed product for cattle and other animals.
Understanding that feeding ethanol co-products can change the nutrient balance in livestock waste, the Corn Board has also supported research examining proper nutrient management methods.
The goal through all of these efforts is to increase the utilization of ethanol co-products by the livestock industry, but especially the livestock industry in Nebraska. The combination of corn-ethanol-distillers grains-livestock puts the state in truly a unique and advantageous position, because no other state in the country can combine the three as well as Nebraska.
Much of the Corn Board’s sponsored research has been conducted through the University of Nebraska, which also has an active role in educating livestock producers and animal nutritionists as to how best to feed ethanol co-products like distillers grains and corn gluten. In fact, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) is one of the country’s premier research centers for beef cattle nutrition.
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Please contact the Nebraska Corn Board if you have questions on the production or feeding of ethanol co-products. Or use the following sources to obtain more information.
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