Cattle (Bos taurus) grazing on unimproved pastures can be a significant, yet often overlooked, source of pollutants to surface waters, especially when the cattle have unlimited access to streams in the pastures. Livestock exclusion from streams has been demonstrated to reduce sediment and possibly nutrient yield from streams draining pastures. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effec...

The traditional New Zealand ryegrass/white clover based seasonal dairy farm system has remained unchanged for many years. Because pasture remains the predominant source of feed, increased milksolids (MS) production is dependent on growing or utilising more pasture. If the increased pasture growth from N fertiliser is discounted then increases in MS production have not occurred on our best dairy...

The project objective was to determine the CLA content of three muscles (Longissimus lumborum, LD; Semimembranosus, SM; Triceps brachii, TB), in both raw and cooked states, in cattle finished on pasture or with grain supplements. Cattle were randomly assigned to one of four finishing regimens; pasture (n=11), pasture with grain supplement (n=11), pasture with grain supplement containing soyoil ...

In recent years, the number of pasture species and cultivars commercially available to farmers in New Zealand has increased significantly. Reasons for this include increased commercial activity in the development and supply of proprietary cultivars, and more specialisation in New Zealand’s pastoral agriculture. In particular, pasture cultivars are increasingly marketed as proprietary products w...

In each of two experiments, 120 pregnant beef cows were stratified by body condition score, BW, breed, and age, randomly divided into six groups of 20, and assigned to one of six 5.1-ha bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon [L.] Pers.) pastures (two replicates/ treatment) in early January to evaluate the use of winter-annual pasture as a supplement. All cows in Exp. 1 and 2 had ad libitum access to be...

Carryover effects of feeding soybean hulls (SBH) on toxic tall fescue [Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb.)] pasture and effects of postgraze steroid implantation on performance and physiology of steers were evaluated in a 2-yr experiment. Following grazing, 36 steers were assigned to 9 pens, and pens were randomly assigned 3 to the following pasture-pen combinations: 1) feeding SBH on pasture an...

Fragments of kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides) forest provide a major opportunity for conservation of indigenous biodiversity in the heavily deforested landscape of the Waikato Basin, New Zealand. However, there is little documented information on what indigenous fauna survives in these fragments. Using Malaise traps set 20 m and 50 m into fragments and 20 m and 50 m into the adjacent pastur...

The objective of this experiment was to determine if transcript abundance of genes involved in metabolic pathways in adipose and liver tissue could provide some explanation for the low efficiency with which ME in autumn pasture is used for BW gain. Nonlactating, pregnant (208 ± 19 d of gestation or approximately 75 d precalving) dairy cows (n = 90) were randomly allocated to either a control di...

Pasture-based dairy production is used widely on family dairy farms in Southern Brazil. This study investigates conventional high input (C-HI), conventional low input (C-LI), and organic low input (O-LI) pasture-based systems and their effects on quantity and quality of the milk produced. We conducted technical site visits and interviews monthly over one year on 24 family farms (n = 8 per type)...