Milk Production from a Tropical Legume-grass Pasture

One member of each of three pairs of monozygous twin dairy cows was fed freshly cut Glycine javanica and kikuyu-grass pasture ad libitum while the co-twins were fed lucerne hay ad libitum and a concentrate mixture. The mean daily digestible organic matter and digestible crude protein intakes for the cows fed pasture were 7.0 kg and 1.35 kg, and for the cows fed hay and concentrates were 10.2 kg and 1.70 kg respectively. Daily milk production was 8.2 kg and 18.1 kg, 4% fat corrected milk respectively. It is suggested that differences in digestible energy intake largely accounted for the production differences measured and that the potential for milk production from a tropical legume-grass pasture is unlikely to match that from a legume-grass pasture in temperate areas.