Impact of DL-methionine and liquid methionine hydroxy analogue in black soldier fly larvae production
Although statistically not significant, the results of this study suggest that DL-methionine (DL-Met) is more effective in supporting growth of black soldier fly larvae than liquid methionine hydroxy analogue (MHA-FA). Particularly, deposition of amino acids was linearly improved with DL-Met. Supplementation of MHA-FA could not increase N-deposition relative to feed nitrogen, whereas DL-Met was effective to increase N-retention by up to 11%.
It is interesting to learn that methionine plays an important role in black soldier fly larvae nutrition as it does in many other species.
Global Senior Expert Poultry, Evonik
The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of supplementation of either DL-methionine (DL-Met) or liquid methionine hydroxy analogue (MHA-FA) on performance and nutrient utilization of black soldier fly larvae.
Location: University of Applied Sciences, Institute Feed Research, Bingen, Germany
Project team leaders: Prof. Dr. Georg Dusel, Nathalie Stöhr, Dr. Andreas Lemme
| Animals | ~14,000 5-day-old black soldier fly larvae per tray, 3 trays per treatment; 7.75 mg/larva in 1. run; 9.41 mg/larva in 2. run |
| Design | Simultaneous dose response trial |
| Housing | 600 mm x 400 mm x 150 mm trays |
| Diets | Based on peas (43%), apple pomace (41%), wheat (10%), soybean meal (2%); 1) Negative control: Basal, unsupplemented substrate (BS); 0.48% Met+Cys in DM 2) Treatment 2a,b: BS + 0.13 or 0.27% DL-Met 3) Treatment 3a,b: BS + 0.10 or 0.26% MHA-FA |
| Feeding | 8.75 kg substrate/tray (2.45 kg DM); ad libitum for 13 days |
| Parameters | Biomass gain; mass balance calculations: amino acid & nitrogen retention, |
| Duration | 8 days |
Trial results
- Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA taking the run as co-variable and did not show any statistically significant treatment differences (p>0.05).
- Final biomass increased by 19% with 0.27% DL-Met while it was 7% with 0.26% MHA-FA. Comparing slopes of two regression lines suggests MHA-FA being 59% as efficient as DL-Met but, however, R² especially for MHA-FA was low (Figure 1).
- Retention of amino acids relative to amino acids offered with the feed increased linearly (R²=1.00) with DL-Met supplementation whereas amino acid retention was not further increased above 0.10% MHA-FA supplementation (Figure 2).
- Nitrogen utilization expressed as retained nitrogen relative to nitrogen offered with the feed was improved by 5.4%-points with 0.26% DL-Met following a linear trend (Figure 3). In contrast, MHA-FA supplementation did not affect nitrogen retention.
- Nitrogen losses, which basically mean ammonia losses and which are calculated as difference between substrate-N and (biomass-N + frass-N), were almost zero with the negative control (Figure 4). Increasing supplementation of either DL-Met or MHA-FA gradually increased nitrogen losses.
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