A high portion of the phosphorus (P) in soybean meal (SBM) is bound to phytate, which is indigestible by pigs. Therefore, a microbial phytase enzyme is supplemented in swine diets. The impact of phytase on the digestibility of P is well documented, however some experiments on digestibility in corn–SBM diets have reported an energy increase if microbial phytase was used.

Therefore, an experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that inclusion of graded levels of microbial phytase in corn-SBM diets fed to growing pigs will increase the digestibility of energy and the concentration of digestible energy (DE) and metabolizable energy (ME) in SBM. The second hypothesis was that the impact of microbial phytase on digestibility of energy in SBM is consistent among different sources of SBM.

The implication is that in addition to an improvement in standard total tract digestibility of calcium and P in SBM, microbial phytase also releases energy-containing nutrients that will result in an increase in DE and ME. Results indicate that the source of SBM does not impact the response to microbial phytase.

Learn more about this work in the full research report here.