Cottonseed meal price

Cottonseed meal is a protein feed, fed to raise a ration's crude-protein content. On a dry-matter basis it runs about 45.6% crude protein and 72% TDN, roughly 0.76 Mcal of net energy for lactation per pound of dry matter, at about 90% dry matter as fed. Those figures come from University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension, Composition of Selected Livestock Feeds (FSA3043), from NRC Beef Cattle 1996 + Dairy One. Solvent, 41% grade. The leaderboard uses them to convert this week's board price into a cost per pound of protein and per pound of energy, so it can be ranked against corn and soybean meal. Prices are quoted per ton, and the cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price once freight and moisture are counted (see the FOB-vs-delivered guide). Cottonseed meal is crushed from cottonseed after the fiber has gone to the gin, so it is a byproduct of a fiber crop's economics, not a protein crop's: acreage decisions across the cotton belt are made for lint, and meal supply follows along. Its natural gossypol content is the fact every buyer needs to know, since it makes the meal unsuitable at real inclusion for swine, poultry and young calves, confining its market mostly to beef cattle and, in smaller amounts, dairy cows. Price tends to shadow soybean meal, the protein source it is measured against, usually at a discount for its lower lysine and the gossypol limit.

Priced off soybean meal, with a standing discount. Cottonseed meal is the protein board's most direct soybean meal substitute after canola, but it trades at a structural discount, not a temporary one. USDA quotes it at a 41 percent protein spec, below soybean meal's roughly 48 percent, and its lysine, the amino acid most monogastric diets are built around, runs lower too. The cottonseed meal vs soybean meal spread tracks that gap over time; a buyer pricing the two head to head on protein alone should expect cottonseed meal to sit under soybean meal most weeks, not occasionally.

Gossypol is the ceiling on demand. Cottonseed carries natural gossypol, and Oklahoma State University Extension documents the toxicosis risk it poses to swine, poultry and young calves at real inclusion rates, which locks most of the meal's market into mature beef cattle and, in smaller amounts, dairy cows. That ceiling on who can use it, more than any nutrient shortfall, is what keeps cottonseed meal a discount protein rather than a full soybean meal substitute.

A cotton-belt, not a protein-crop, supply. Acreage decisions across the cotton belt are made for lint value, not for the meal or oil a crush plant pulls from the seed afterward, so cottonseed meal supply follows cotton planting and ginning rather than any protein-crop economics. USDA prices it FOB the plant and delivered across five regions this site tracks: Arkansas, California's San Joaquin Valley, the Kansas City region, Memphis and St. Louis, all at the same 41 percent spec, so quotes across regions are directly comparable without an unstated grade adjustment.