Farmscape for May 15, 2020

Research conducted on behalf of the Swine Health Information Center has confirmed the ability of viruses to survive in feed under real world conditions.
Laboratory research has shown viruses can survive in feed ingredients during transport over long distances.
As a next step, in partnership with the Swine Health Information Center, Pipestone Applied Research conducted a demonstration project this spring under which viruses were trucked around the country in feed and their half life, degradation and survivability were measured under real life conditions.
Swine Health Information Center Executive Director Dr. Paul Sundberg says researchers looked at endemic viruses such as Seneca Valley Virus, PRRS and PED in feed ingredients such as soybean meal, vitamins and amino acids.

Clip-Dr. Paul Sundberg-Swine Health Information Center:
The thing that gave us confidence in this area of study is that the demonstration project that we did looking at this really mimicked what had happened in the laboratory.
It again confirmed that, even out in the real world, as these things are being transported around the country that soybean products seem to be protective of the different viruses.
They were able to survive longer in soybean products than others.
We don't know the reason for that yet.
We hypothesize it has something to do with the protein content.
It may be also something to do with the water content that's within the products.
We don't know for sure but it certainly mimicked what we saw in the laboratory.
The viruses survived longer in protein products like soybeans.
They were limited in their survival in vitamins and amino acid ingredients.
The good thing was that we were able to maybe validate, if you will, the experimental results in the laboratories by taking it out and looking at in under more realistic conditions.

Dr. Sundberg says the evidence thus far is the transmission of viruses in feed is possible and the next step is to figure out what can be done about it.
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Bruce Cochrane.

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