Safflower meal price

Safflower meal is a protein feed, fed to raise a ration's crude-protein content. On a dry-matter basis it runs about 24% crude protein and 56% TDN, roughly 0.56 Mcal of net energy for lactation per pound of dry matter, at about 91% dry matter as fed. Those figures come from Colorado State University Extension, Feed Composition for Cattle and Sheep (Fact Sheet 1.615). Solvent, undecorticated. 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). Safflower meal is crushed from safflower seed after the oil is pressed out, an oil used mostly for cooking and, in high-oleic varieties, industrial uses. It is a small-acreage US crop, grown mainly in California and as a rotation option on the northern Plains in Montana and North Dakota, so the meal trades in a thin, regional market next to soybean or canola meal. Most US safflower meal is the undecorticated kind, hull left in, which pushes fiber up and energy down against a dehulled meal. Cattle rations are the main outlet, valuing it as a rumen-degradable protein where the extra fiber is tolerated; monogastric use stays limited.