Milk Production, Body Weight, Body Condition Score, Activity, and Rumination of Organic Dairy Cattle Grazing Two Different Pasture Systems Incorporating Cool- and Warm-Season Forages

Abstract

Organic dairy cows were used to evaluate the effect of two organic pasture production systems (temperate grass species and warm-season annual grasses and cool-season annuals compared with temperate grasses only) across two grazing seasons (May to October of 2014 and 2015) on milk production, milk components (fat, protein, milk urea nitrogen (MUN), somatic cell score (SCS)), body weight, body condition score (BCS), and activity and rumination (min/day). Cows were assigned to two pasture systems across the grazing season at an organic research dairy in Morris, Minnesota. Pasture System 1 was cool-season perennials (CSP) and Pasture System 2 was a combination of System 1 and warm-season grasses and cool-season annuals. System 1 and System 2 cows had similar milk production (14.7 and 14.8 kg d−1), fat percentage (3.92% vs. 3.80%), protein percentage (3.21% vs. 3.17%), MUN (12.5 and 11.5 mg dL−1), and SCS (4.05 and 4.07), respectively. Cows in System 1 had greater daily rumination (530 min/day) compared to cows in System 2 (470 min/day). In summary, warm-season annual grasses may be incorporated into grazing systems for pastured dairy cattle.

Profiling of cool-season forage arabinoxylans via a validated HPAEC-PAD method

“…However, much less is known about the AX structures of non-grain, vegetative tissues, with a few exceptions such as sugarcane and bamboo ( Azuma et al., 1990 ; Ishii, 1991 ) and materials targeted for second generation biofuel production, such as barley straw and alkali-pretreated switchgrass ( Höije et al., 2005 ; Mazumder and York, 2010 ; Bowman et al., 2012 ; Bowman et al., 2015 ; Tryfona et al., 2019 ). The knowledge gap in regards to the AX structure from the natural (non-pretreated) vegetative tissue of cool-season forage species is especially wide, despite the fact that these plants make sizeable, profitable contributions to the diets of important production animals like beef and dairy cattle ( Lardner et al., 2013 ; Ritz et al., 2021 ). AX are fermented by the rumen bacteria ( Russell and Rychlik, 2001 ; Dodd et al., 2011 ), but the absence of detailed structural information about AX from vegetative tissues in cool season forage species means that questions about how forage AX structure directs rumen fermentation patterns and generates downstream health and performance consequences in the host remain unanswered.…”

Yield, nutrient composition, and horse condition in integrated crabgrass and cool-season grass rotational grazing pasture systems

“…This integrated cool- and warm-season pasture management strategy has been previously assessed for use in cattle grazing management. Studies using cattle have reported higher summer and/or season-long yield for warm-season species in integrated rotational grazing systems (IRSs), but lower forage nutritional quality of WSGs resulted in no advantages for milk production or growth performance ( Tracy et al, 2010 ; Kallenbach et al, 2012 ; Ritz et al, 2021 ). However, integrated rotational grazing has not been evaluated in horses.…”