Improved Feed Products From Pima Cottonseed: By-products of Biofuels Feedstock Production

New options for both biofuel feedstocks and dairy feeds are needed. Recent instability and high petroleum prices have made this apparent in energy markets. This has also affected livestock feed markets as the price of food for the consumer as the shock waves created by the corn ethanol boom move through the economy. This project addresses both issues by adding value to an underutilized byproduct of a Pima cotton, a fiber crop. The majority of cottonseed produced in the US is used a dairy feed. Pima seed trades for $40-60 less a ton than upland cottonseed. Pima seed is undervalued because of lower feed quality and high gossypol levels. Pima cottonseed contains 14 million gallons of potential biofuel. Current oil production from cottonseed focuses on solvent-extracted food-grade oil from upland cottonseed. If oil extraction technology can be improved, Pima cottonseed can be used to produce an economically viable biofuel and a byproduct with improved feed value. Phase I funds will be used to prove the technical feasibility of using a novel process to produce an improved feed product and biofuel feedstock from Pima cottonseed. Small scale production runs will be used to optimize parameters to produce both a high quality dairy feed and a high quality biofuel feedstock.with gossypol reduction and high bypass protein levels. Several tons of feed will be produced in order to to conduct a lactating dairy cow feeding trial. A 3x3 Latin square feeding trial will be conducted using 24 high producing dairy cows fed either a soybean meal, whole upland cottonseed meal, high heat cottonseed meal to determine effect on milk yield and protein digestibility. Work will be performed under a CRADA (No.58-3k95-7-1192) between Eco-Sol and the USDA-ARS Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research Laboratory in New Mexico. This technology would improve the value of Pima cottonseed, provide the dairy industry with a moderately priced bypass protein from cottonseed with a reduced risk of gossypol toxicity, and develop a method to produce a low-cost biofuel from a crop which uses 50% of the water of corn.