Sunflower meal price

Sunflower meal is a protein feed, fed to raise a ration's crude-protein content. On a dry-matter basis it runs about 32% crude protein and 57% TDN, roughly 0.57 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, with hulls (~28-34% CP grade); high fiber lowers energy. A dehulled grade runs much higher. The leaderboard uses them to convert each USDA report 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). Sunflower meal is crushed from sunflower seed once the oil, much of it now the high-oleic type prized for cooking oil, has been pressed out. The Dakotas grow the great majority of the US crop, so supply is a northern Plains story more than a Corn Belt one. Whether the hull stays in is the biggest quality swing: a with-hull meal runs lower in protein and higher in fiber, and most of what trades commercially keeps the hull in. That fiber load is why cattle rations, which tolerate it, are the main buyer, while poultry and swine use stays limited. Price generally follows soybean meal, adjusted down for the fiber and lower lysine.

Nobody plants sunflowers for the meal. The crush runs for the oil and the meal is what is left. NDSU Extension notes US sunflower meal supply varies year to year with the acres and yield of sunflowers harvested; the meal's own price is not part of that equation. USDA's Economic Research Service notes that oil-type sunflowers make up the bulk of US sunflower acreage and that the same seed also sells into bird food. It adds that new canola and soybean crush plants in North Dakota pulled ground toward those oilseeds when sunflowers paid less. A strong meal bid in winter cannot add an acre to the next fall's crop.

The world price is made around the Black Sea. Northern Plains meal trades inside a global market. ERS reports Ukraine has been the world's top sunflower seed producer over the last two decades and crushes most of its harvest into meal and oil for export. The size of that crop, and whether it can leave the region, sets the tone for sunflower meal everywhere. US buyers then argue the local price against soybean meal on protein, the gap the sunflower meal vs soybean meal table on this page shows.

Beef cows are the buyer it fits best. NDSU reports sunflower meal is more rumen-degradable than soybean or canola meal, which suits cows on winter range or crop aftermath, where rumen microbes need degradable protein to break down low-quality forage. The same publication calls it often very price-competitive per unit of crude protein in cow supplements, and in one growing-heifer trial feed cost per pound of gain matched soybean meal because sunflower's protein cost less per unit. That makes cow-calf herds and growing-calf rations a steady home for the with-hull tons. What is sunflower meal? walks through the hull ladder and the amino acids.

Harvested in fall, crushed through winter, shipped as pellets. NDSU notes most sunflowers are processed from October through March, with some seasonal variation in meal output, while the National Sunflower Association says domestic demand for NuSun oil has spread the annual crush more evenly across the 12 months. The meal moves either granular or pelleted, and NDSU points out that pellets pack denser, which lowers transportation cost per ton for meal that starts its trip on the northern Plains.

Sunflower meal vs soybean meal. Sunflower meal is lower in protein and much higher in fiber than soybean meal, which lowers its energy and limits it in monogastric diets. South Dakota State University Extension positions it as a rumen-degradable protein for cattle, where the fiber is tolerated; its lysine is lower than soybean meal's. How much hull stays in the meal moves both numbers, which what is sunflower meal? walks through grade by grade.