Vitamic C Helps Boars Beat The Heat
PRINCETON. NJ. When
temperatures rise, conception
rates fall. It’s a fact of life taken
for granted on hog farms around
the country.
But research suggests that sup
plementing boar rations with vita
min C may help minimize the
typical summer slump, said Uni
versity of Kentucky animal scient
ist Dr. Merlin Lindemann.
The reason: the vitamin appears
to help protect sperm from heat
related damage.
Because swine synthesize vita
min C in the liver, the industry
hasn’t worried much about the nu
trient, Lindemann points out. In
fact, the National Research Coun
cil (NRC) doesn’t even estimate a
dietary vitamin C requirement for
swine.
But the question is whether
hogs produce enough vitamin C to
meet their needs during hot weath
er and other stress conditions, es
pecially given the high levels of
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production expected on today’s
farms.
“There’s been quite a bit of
work in other species that manu
facture vitamin C showing a re
sponse to supplementation during
periods of heat stress,” Linde
mann said. “The swine studies to
date have been limited, but they
do appear very favorable and fit in
with all the concepts involved in
vitamin C metabolism. If you put
them together with the work in
other species, they seem to indi
cate that breeding boars, especial
ly in situations of high heat stress,
might be a very responsive animal
to supplementation.”
For instance, Taiwanese re
searchers found that sperm count
fell by a little over 25 percent in
unsupplemented boars from April
into June and remained depressed
at that level through October. The
drop was halved to about 12 per
cent in boars whose ration was
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supplemented to provide 300 mil
ligrams of vitamin C per head dai-
“Thc researchers also found
more abnormalities in the unsup
plemented boars’ sperm; these
cumulative effects on the semen/
sperm quality could potentially be
related to greater returns to estrus
or lower conception rates in sows
that were bred to those boars,”
Lindemann said. “All those
sures were responsive to vitamin
C supplementation.”
Scientists still don’t know ex
actly why vitamin C supplementa
tion seems to influence sperm
counts and quality during summer
heat, but Lindemann points out
that the testes normally contain a
relatively high concentration of
vitamin C. In addition, human re
search at the University of Cali
fomia/Berkeley suggests that in
creased concentrations of vitamin
C, which is an antioxidant, help
protect the sperm from damage by
highly reactive oxygen-derived
substances, which are natural but
often harmful byproducts of meta
bolism.
One of the challenges when
feeding vitamin C, Lindcmann
points out, is the instability of (he
vitamin. To offset that, he recom
mends checking to make sure any
vitamin C product used in swine
rations is a stabilized form.
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GOLDEN VALLEY. Minn.
Aside from filling in ruts, there is
little producers can do this spring
to correct deeply compacted
fields, said Jim Graeber, Northrup
King agronomist for Illinois.
Deep tillage at this time usually
results in yield losses. During a
dry spring, tillage carries an addi
tional risk as it reduces already
limited soil moisture.
Graeber acknowledges that
winter temperature swings can
help reduce compaction. This
year’s light snow cover, combined
with extreme cold temperatures,
drove frost deep into the soil,
helping to break up compacted
layers. Unfortunately, it may take
several years of these freezing and
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compaction problems.
Badly compacted fields are not
good candidates for first-year no-
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Strategies
Compaction
till, Graeber warns. Instead, grow
ers should follow a conventional
tillage program for one more year,
then deep-till the field in the fall.
If producers must no-till a com
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Severe soil compaction may be
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