The influence of dairy management strategies on water productivity of milk production

Michael Krauß, Simone Kraatz, Katrin Drastig and Annette Prochnow

Agricultural Water Management, 2015, vol. 147, issue C, 175-186

Abstract: Livestock production is the main user of water resources in agricultural production. The objective of this study is to quantify the effects of dairy management strategies such as feeding strategies, milk yield and replacement rate on the water productivity of milk. The study is based on site conditions of North-East Germany. The water input is considered as the sum of crop transpiration from precipitation, the total irrigation water and the drinking water of the animals. Four feeding strategies, based on the maximization of grass silage, maize silage, pasture and concentrate, were analyzed. The milk yield varied between 4000 and 12,000kg fat corrected milk (FCM) cow−1year−1 in steps of 2000kg. Feed water productivity on a dry mass (DM) base varied widely between 1.5kg(DM)m−3 of water input for grass silage and 2.6kg(DM)m−3 for maize silage, 0.8–1.8kg(DM)m−3 for grain and 0.4kg(DM)m−3 for soybeans from Brazil. The water productivity of milk increased with an increasing milk yield. The lowest water productivity was calculated at 4000kg(FCM) with 1.1kg(FCM)m−3 water input. At a milk yield of 8000kg(FCM) the water productivity was 1.5kg(FCM)m−3 and at 10,000 and 12,000kg(FCM) it was 1.6kg(FCM)m−3. The most beneficial conditions related to water productivity in dairy farming exemplarily for site conditions of North-East Germany are found to be with a milk yield about 10,000kg(FCM) and a grass silage and maize silage based feeding.

Keywords: Feeding strategy; Diets; Milk yield; Replacement rate; Dairy water productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:147:y:2015:i:c:p:175-186

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2014.07.015

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