Relationship of soybean and soybean meal quality

Since the mid-1970s, the U.S. acreage for growing soybean, the average soybean yield per acre, as well as the average soybean meal production per year have been increasing; however, the U.S. has continued to lose world trade share for those commodities since the mid-\u2770s. In order to reverse the trend in soybean meal (SBM) market, an in-depth quality evaluation of SBM collected around the world and across the United States was conducted. The U.S. SBM quality was also compared with the annual U.S. soybean quality. The results of the global SBM quality survey over three years showed that SBM from the United States was highest in compositional quality amino acid profile and protein solubility. Samples from India, Argentina, and Brazil were of lower quality. Results of the domestic SBM quality survey (1999) showed that SBM protein followed the soybean protein trend, meaning regions with lower protein soybean produced low-protein SBM; however, the quality of soybean meal protein on the basis of amino acids did not follow the protein trend. The relative lysine and threonine concentrations in SBM samples collected from historically low soybean protein zones were not significantly different from relative lysine and threonine concentrations in samples from historically high soybean protein zones