Morning and evening harvest effects on animal performance
Mayland, H.F. and Shewmaker, G.E. and Burns, J.C. and Fisher, D.S. (1998) Morning and evening harvest effects on animal performance. pp. 26-30. In: Proc. California/Nevada Alfalfa Symp. USA-NV-Reno, 1998/12/03-04.
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Abstract
Plants vary diurnally in concentrations of nonstructural carbohydrates (TNC). Delaying forage
harvest until mid to late afternoon could result in increased TNC in forage. Ruminants can
differentiate between PM-harvested and AM-harvested grass and alfalfa hays and eat more PM-harvested
versus AM-harvested hay. In a related study, dairy cows ate about 10% more total
mixed ration containing 40% PM-harvested alfalfa hay versus the same ration containing AM-harvested
hay, produced more milk, and gained rather than lost body weight. Afternoon harvest
management could add $15/ton of alfalfa compared with morning harvesting.
Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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NWISRL Publication Number: | 0978 |
Subjects: | Animal Mass Import - autoclassified (may be erroneous) |
Depositing User: | Dan Stieneke |
Date Deposited: | 20 Nov 2010 21:57 |
Last Modified: | 17 Nov 2016 16:14 |
Item ID: | 1089 |
URI: | https://eprints.nwisrl.ars.usda.gov/id/eprint/1089 |