Phosphorus Scorching Research Paper

Phosphorus Reduction: The New Pig in Town The 21st century is one abloom with scientific and technological advancement. From the sequencing of the human genome to the development of touchscreen phones, this century, albeit just beginning, has already surmounted the expectations of what people ever imagined possible. Advances in genetics have become especially important to swine production and, consequently, to the environment as well. Excess phosphorus in manure has the potential to runoff into freshwater sources, causing eutrophication of water and ecosystems. Eutrophication also causes oxygen-depriving algae to bloom and increases fish mortality (Golovan et al., 2001). Not only does this harm our environment but it depletes the limited amount of phosphorus supply available on Earth (Kebreab, Hansen, & Strathe, 2012). Pigs and their by-products, which include footballs and drug capsules, have become an integral part of our daily lives. Society’s dependence on porcine goods has augmented the swine sector, bringing about strict environmental regulations on the industry which include: phosphorus indexes, emission laws, manure management plans, …show more content…
Diets and amount of pigs used in each experiment varied. However, they all used two different types of pigs: Cassie line Yorkshire transgenic pigs and normal Yorkshire pigs. In these experiments, boars, gilts, and barrows were used, combinations of which also depended on the experiment being conducted (Meidinger et al., 2013). Boars are intact males, gilts are young females, and barrows are mature female pigs. The normal Yorkshire pigs in each experiment served as positive controls for their respective experiments. Positive controls serve to highlight the impact of what is being investigated by serving as a neutral baseline. Without a positive control, experimenters would have no indication of how effective or detrimental their changes were on their