National Agricultural Statistics Service

Acid insoluble ash (AIA) has been used as a marker for nutrient digestibility determination in various animals with conflicting results. Lack of reliability for AIA analysis has been hypothesized as a cause. For validation, the present study compared AIA with yttrium oxide for determining apparent digestibility coefficients (ADCs) of nutrients in rainbow trout and hybrid striped bass, using a newly developed method for AIA measurement. Twelve diets were made by spiking a reference mixture with Y 2 O 3 at 0.1% and Celite at 0, 0.3 and 0.6%, and mixing each with soybean meal, distillers' dried grains with solubles, or fishmeal at a 70:30 ratio, respectively. Trout and bass were grown in 36 tanks, three tanks per diet. Feces were collected by stripping. With both fish species, ADCs of dry matter, protein, fat, energy and phosphorus, based on yttrium retention were consistent and realistic. However, ADCs by AIA were significantly lower and variable, with many being negative, even though the issue with AIA analysis had been addressed. Further investigation revealed that yttrium content as % total ash in feces was higher than that in diets, but AIA as % total ash in feces was lower than that in diets. The observed low or negative ADCs by AIA likely resulted from slower AIA movement than nutrient digesta through fish gastrointestinal tracts, which was compounded by using stripping for fecal collection. Therefore, further studies incorporating methods of collecting naturally defecated feces are needed before definitive conclusions on AIA reliability as a marker can be made. • AIA was compared with yttrium oxide for determining ADCs of nutrients in rainbow trout and hybrid striped bass. • The combination of using yttrium oxide as a marker and stripping for fecal collection was effective for ADC determination. • The combination of AIA as a marker and stripping for fecal collection was ineffective for ADC determination. • In determining nutrient ADCs in fish, effects of inner markers and fecal collection methods and their interactions need to be taken into consideration. • Further studies incorporating methods of collecting naturally defecated feces are needed before a definitive conclusion on AIA reliability as a marker can be made.

The spread of African Swine Fever (ASF) across much of the world is a profound challenge to both domestic and wild Suidae populations. While vaccine and countermeasure development for domestic swine are ongoing, the understanding of ASF within wildlife is limited. This gap in knowledge is largely due to the requirements of working with African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) in high containment laboratories, the complexity of utilizing wildlife in these settings, and researcher access to non-native species. Researching the role of ASFV within wildlife primary cells, outside a vivarium, is currently limited by the need to utilize either terminal processing procedures, such as harvesting alveolar macrophages or bone marrow, or processes requiring large volumes of blood, such as peripheral blood mononuclear cell harvests. The limited availability and access restrictions of susceptible wildlife makes obtaining these samples difficult, especially when working with endangered wildlife species. Harvesting buffy coat fractions is independent of terminal methodologies and the need for large volumes of blood. A methodology to support ASFV replication has recently been demonstrated utilizing domestic swine blood derived buffy coat cells. Through establishing collaborations with zoological partners, we apply this methodology to small volumes of blood from an African Warthog, a known ASF susceptible species. These results demonstrate the value of such partnerships and how they may be utilized in the future to evaluate ASFV in wildlife derived cells in vitro.

ABSTRACT Biosecurity is an increasingly important aspect of management of commodities in a globalised economy. The larger grain borer, Prostephanus truncatus , is a known biosecurity threat to the United States and has been classified as a species‐of‐concern. Under climate change, P. truncatus is expected to expand its range into the United States from Mexico. In this study, we performed a 2‐year latitudinal biosurveillance programme for P. truncatus , related bostrichids and Sitophilus spp. as key species in and around maize and wheat production at 10–15 sites from 20° to 47° latitude in North America and Greece to evaluate how habitat, latitude and season affected spatiotemporal dynamics of these insects. Two types of traps, a 4‐funnel Lindgren and pitfall traps, were deployed at each site, baited with each species' pheromones. In total, we captured 2528 insects in 2021 and 29,080 insects in 2022. P. truncatus was only documented in Mexico but in high abundance in both years. Interestingly, even though P. truncatus is a good flier, the funnel trap was equally effective as the pitfall trap in monitoring P. truncatus . Conspecifics were found most often in natural and row crop habitats in both years compared to food facilities. Captures of P. punctatus in 2022 most often occurred in natural habitats, but they were still present at row crops and near food facilities. By contrast, Sitophilus spp. were most associated with food facilities. Overall, this study helps inform current risk from P. truncatus and fundamental patterns of spatiotemporal distribution for several related key stored product insects.

Soybeans ( Glycine max ) are a major source of plant proteins for food and feed globally. Still, the natural presence of Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (KTI) and Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI) compromises their nutrition. In a previous study, the evolution of BBI genes was investigated, and a group of highly expressed seed-specific BBI genes in legumes were found. By using a CRISPR-Cas9 system targeting eight seed-specific BBI genes in soybeans, a hypothesis regarding the physiological role of BBI was validated, and mutants were generated with the drastic reduction in protease inhibition but little changes in agronomic traits. The present study aimed at developing transgene-free soybean mutants with as many homozygous edited BBI genes as possible by selfing segregation, genotyping T0-T2 plants, and phenotyping T1-T3 seeds for potential commercial applications. From T1 to T2 plants, homozygous mutations increased to five genes with different editing patterns, but T1-T3 seeds, either transgenic or transgene-free, all had drastic and consistent reductions in not only reactive BBI (79–82 %) but also reactive KTI (48–67 %) — an unanticipated change, leading to dramatic reductions in total trypsin inhibition (68–77 %) and total chymotrypsin inhibition (76–81 %) against a wild-type. On SDS-PAGE, mutant seeds exhibited no BBI band but a KTI band as intensive as the wild type. The observation indicated a possible disturbance of the reactive site or binding affinity of KTI to trypsin by significant reduction in BBI. Furthermore, a heating experiment demonstrated that based on BBI content and chymotrypsin inhibition, the mutant soybeans could bypass heating or at least shorten it by half, which is commonly required for conventional soybeans for optimal nutrition. Thus, the new soybeans were commercially valuable. • Generated transgene free soybean with 70 % reduction in protease inhibitor activities. • First to document changes in contents of protease inhibitors (KTI & BBI) in soybeans. • New soybeans could reduce heating time to half or even bypass a heating process. • New soybeans will benefit soybean and related industries once commercialized.

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is one of the few veterinary pathogens that defines policy and global trade in animal products. Its prominence necessitates approaches to control that integrate the multiple factors contributing to the disease’s biology and transmission characteristics. Central to this concept is the epidemiological FMD status (endemic or FMD-free, with or without vaccination) of a territory, which defines access to export markets. FMD epidemiology is complex, insufficiently understood, and intertwined with the biology of the virus (multiple serotypes and subtypes), global distribution (distinct regional virus pools), pathogenesis (subclinical infections and species differences), and host range (broad range of susceptible domestic and wild animals). Despite steady advances, critical knowledge gaps persist in FMD epidemiology that undermine the optimal control of FMD. This review summarizes the distinct thematic compartments of FMD epidemiology and presents the critical knowledge gaps that continue to limit the effectiveness of global, regional, and national initiatives to control and eradicate FMD.

Federal statistical agencies are keenly aware that scientific research is not the only way in which their data assets are used for evidence building. Entities around the world have been building services on top of curated corpuses of scientific research, to help provide insight as to the importance of the works in the collection. This also provides a much-needed framework for statistical agencies and other dataset creators to search and find the usages and impacts of those datasets. While the other papers in this special issue largely apply machine learning models to find datasets in an extensively curated corpus, this paper starts with a much less structured framework and examines the potential to discover how datasets are used in writing that’s targeted at a broader base of users than scientific researchers, and describes the challenges and lessons learned from the exercise.

When pretesting survey questionnaires, there are benefits to using a multimethod approach. However, using multiple methods can be cost prohibitive. In 2021, the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) received feedback from stakeholders regarding concerns about double counting of grain stocks in the Agricultural Survey and the Grain Stocks Report. Data from these two surveys are used to produce the Grain Stocks publication, which is a principal Federal Economic Indicator publication. To address stakeholder feedback, NASS evaluated these two multimode surveys, in a short timeframe, with limited resources. Despite these limitations, NASS utilized expert review, cognitive testing, usability testing and behavior coding to evaluate these two survey questionnaires. This paper demonstrates that multimethod pretesting can be done effectively on a low-cost, small-scale basis.