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IPIC extension program specialist Colin Johnson said two of the projects are continuations from previous years and the rest are newly funded projects for this year.

"We were impressed with the variety and quality of all the submitted proposals," Johnson said. "These projects will enable ISU Extension field staff to work in areas of current interest to producers and others in the swine industry."

IPIC director John Mabry said it's important that the center continue to offer this type of funding opportunity to field staff.

"Budget cutbacks limit the amount of funding we are able to provide; however, we think these projects have great potential for useful initial results and possible future research areas,"Mabry said.

A listing of project coordinators and brief descriptions of their respective projects follows.

• ISU Extension agricultural engineering field specialist Greg Brenneman received $2,000 for a study of the residual benefits of swine manure at one year and two years after application. This is the fourth year for IPIC funding for plots at the ISU Southeast Research and Demonstration Farm at Crawfordsville. Farm superintendent Kevin Van Dee and ISU Extension crops field specialist Jim Fawcett also will be involved with this project.

• ISU Extension swine field specialist Mark Storlie received $2,150 to evaluate use of Electronic Identification (EID) implants in sows across multiple farms. A niche marketing study also will be included. Nine pork producer members of Organic Valley Cooperative will participate in this project.

• ISU Extension project planning specialist Tom Miller and Brenneman received $8,000 to study using swine manure in forage production. Forage yield, application rates and methods will be evaluated. ISU Extension livestock field specialist Byron Leu, ISU Extension crops specialist Mark Carlton and cooperating producers with forage ground in southeast Iowa also will be involved.

• ISU Extension swine field specialist Larry McMullen received $2,500 to conduct a workshop for consumers on pork quality. The workshop will focus on education and promotion of various commodity and niche pork brands. ISU Extension family nutrition and health field specialists also will be involved.

• ISU Extension swine field specialist Jerry Weiss received $1,400 to conduct a demonstration project of a new heat synchronization product for breeding gilts. Regumate, sold as Matrix(tm), has been approved and will be available for commercial hog producers. This project will be conducted at Iowa Lakes Community College (ILCC) in Emmetsburg. ISU Extension swine field specialist Dave Stender and ILCC swine instructor Marv Carlson also will be involved.

• Stender and Weiss received $2,000 to conduct a cull sow feeding trial designed to maximize economic return. Economic considerations of retaining and/or purchasing lightweight sows and feeding them to more optimal weights will be studied. Feed conversion, cost of gain, death loss risk and market potential will be evaluated in this northwest Iowa trial.

• Stender and ISU Extension agricultural engineering field specialist Kris Kohl received $4,300 to study the impact of diet modification on odor production. Specifically, this project will look at lower levels of crude protein through the use of synthetic amino acids. ISU animal science associate professor Wendy Powers and ISU agricultural and biosystems engineering faculty also will be involved.

• Stender received $1,000 for a continued comparison of nursery feed additives in the ILCC herd. Treatments to be used are: antibiotic, no additive and "natural" Royal Nutrazyme(tm) Powder. This will fund a second set of three replications to verify earlier results. Carlson, Weiss and ISU Extension livestock field specialist Dennis DeWitt also will be involved.

Source: Iowa Pork Industry Center - 7th November 2003