Forage Quality Testing and Markets; Where Are We Going?

Forage quality has a large impact on market price and profitability. Nationwide, the marketing systems of Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) and Relative Feed Value (RFV) are primarily ‘fiber-based’ marketing systems, since they depend upon Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF) and Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF) lab measurements. Average change in California markets over 8 years of market reports in California was slightly over $7.00 per unit ADF (over $10.50/unit TDN), with somewhat lower values per unit of quality in the Intermountain, desert regions, and the Pacific Northwest. Marketing systems based upon ADF or NDF have the advantage of simplicity, and can successfully differentiate major differences between hay lots. However, they may fail to differentiate important differences in forage quality within a critical range of interest where changes in price are dramatic. Greater use of NDF digestibility, Ash, or other more measurements may assist in differentiating these hay products and improve prediction of the feeding value, if those measurements can be shown to be rapid and repeatable. There are limitations to the use of calculated values (including TDN); therefore it is important to primarily use measured, not calculated values in the marketplace. More sophisticated methods to incorporate additional measurements into the marketplace are needed.