Swine in Minnesota

Evaluating cardiac puncture blood collection as a reliable and biosecure postmortem diagnostic tool in swine

This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.

MSHMP researchers Claudio Marcello Melini, Mariana Kikuti, Xiaomei Yue, and Cesar A. Corzo take a look at cardiac puncture, an alternative tool for blood collection during outbreak investigations.

Swine & U: Springtime manure application is just around the corner

By Diane DeWitte, UMN Extension swine educator for The LAND

Maybe your manure plan involves fall application, but as the soils thaw and the tiles begin to run, it’s a good idea to review a few environmental protection habits which will help keep nutrients where they belong.

University of Minnesota Extension provides good resources for nutrient application calculation and groundwater and shoreland protection at its manure management website. Extension manure management specialist, Melissa Wilson, and manure management crops educator Chryseis Modderman provide the latest best management practices for manure application in our Land of Ten Thousand Lakes and Nine Million Pigs.

Partitioning, a novel approach to mitigate the risk and impact of African Swine Fever (ASF) in endemic settings

This is our Friday rubric: every week a new Science Page from the Bob Morrison’s Swine Health Monitoring Project. The previous editions of the science page are available on our website.

In this week’s Science Page Solenne Costard, Andres M. Perez, Francisco J. Zagmutt, Jane G. Pouzou, and Huybert Groenendaal share how partioning would contribute to the improved resilience and sustainability of the global pork industry.

Best of Leman: Katlyn McClellan – Optimizing gestation nutrition to mitigate sow anemia, improve farrowing outcomes, and support longevity in the prolific sow

This is our most popular series on the blog. Once a month, we are sharing with you a presentation given at the Allen D. Leman swine conference, on topics that the swine group found interesting, innovative or that lead to great discussions.

You can find all of the presentations selected from previous conferences on the blog here.

This presentation was given by Katlyn McClellan of South Dakota State University during the 2025 Allen D. Leman Swine Conference.

Staying ahead of PRRS

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus continues to generate massive losses in the U.S. industry. One of the challenges that producers and veterinarians have faced is distinguishing new introductions from older viruses on their farms. To address this challenge, PRRSV classification has changed significantly over the last decade. The industry continues to gradually move away from RFLPs (i.e, 1-4-4, 1-8-4, 1-7-4), which are unreliable indicators of genetic relationships, and has instead classified PRRS into groups known as lineages and sub-lineages.