The Relative Importance of Herbage Nutritive Value and Climate in Determining Daily Performance per Cow in a Pasture-Based Dairy Farm

Federico Duranovich, Nicola Shadbolt, Ina Draganova, Nicolas López-Villalobos, Ian Yule and Stephen Morris
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Federico Duranovich: School of Agriculture and Environment, College of Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Nicola Shadbolt: School of Agriculture and Environment, College of Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Ina Draganova: School of Agriculture and Environment, College of Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Nicolas López-Villalobos: School of Agriculture and Environment, College of Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Ian Yule: Massey AgriFood Digital Lab, School of Food and Advanced Technology, College of Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Stephen Morris: School of Agriculture and Environment, College of Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: The objective of this study was to assess the relative importance of herbage nutritive value (NV), herbage quantity and climate-related factors in determining daily performance per cow in a pasture-based dairy farm. Data on milk production, live weight, body condition score, weather, herbage NV and herbage quantity were regularly collected from August 2016 to April 2017 and from July 2017 to April 2018 at Dairy 1, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Data were analyzed using multiple linear regression. Results indicated herbage NV was of higher relative importance in explaining the variation in performance per cow than herbage quantity and climate factors. The relative importance of the interaction between herbage metabolizable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP) on explaining variation in yields of milk, fat and protein was high (0.11 ≤ R 2 ≤ 0.15). Herbage ME was of high relative importance in determining milk urea and body condition score, while neutral detergent fiber was a key driver of milk urea and liveweight (0.12 ≤ R 2 ≤ 0.16). The quantity of herbage supplied at Dairy 1 might have been high enough to not limit cow performance. Developing feeding strategies aimed at improving the efficiency of cow feeding by exploiting the daily variation in herbage NV to better match supply and demand of nutrients may be useful to improve the overall performance per cow of pasture-based dairy farms.

Keywords: herbage nutritive value; herbage quantity; climate; grazing cow performance; pasture-based dairy farming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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