Forage plants introduced to Hawai`i have come from both temperate and tropical areas of the world. Although introduced species have changed the face of the landscape, they have often failed to provide long-term benefits to the livestock industry. Proper management of rangelands can result in increased livestock productivity and reduce the need for further introductions of forage plants. Almost ...

1. It is generally assumed that animals compensate for a declining diet quality with increasing food intake. Differences in the response to decreasing forage quality in herbivores have been postulated particularly between cattle (ruminants) and horses (hindgut fermenters). However, empirical tests for both assumptions in herbivorous mammals are rare. 2. We collected data on voluntary food intak...

Objective Many livestock owners use the granular form of urea nitrogen during late summer and fall trying to increase forage growth for “stockpiled” forage. Livestock are then allowed to graze the “stockpile” at a later date when other forages no longer are growing or available. This practice extends the grazing season and reduces the need for higher priced stored feed. Urea is a common nitroge...

1. Combining the needs of agricultural production with enhancing biodiversity requires a landscape-scale approach since the geographic scale at which most non-farmed species operate is unconstrained by farm boundaries. Bumblebees are a key component of farmland biodiversity as pollinators of both crops and wild flora. However, the factors determining their densities in such landscapes remain po...

Digestion of cell wall fractions of forage in the rumen is incomplete due to the complex links which limit their degradation. It is therefore necessary to find options to optimize the use of forages in ruminant production systems. One alternative is to use exogenous enzymes. Exogenous fibrolytic enzymes are of fungal or bacterial origin and increase nutrient availability from the cell wall, whi...

The argali (Ovis ammon) is a species of great conservation concern throughout its range in central Asia, and is particularly sensitive to human disturbance and habitat degradation. Recent increases in livestock numbers have potentially reduced the capacity of habitats to sustain argali because of forage or interference competition. We studied the potential for forage competition between argali ...

The University of Minnesota Forage Team is proud to announce the second edition of the Forage Quarterly. The January issues ranges in content from alternative forage systems to acquisition of pasturelands. In addition to the valuable information in this edition, the UMN Forage Team would like to inform you of our upcoming winter meetings. The program was designed to address key forage productio...

Forage sorghum is considered to be the most heat and drought resistant summer forage with a fairly high green forage yield. Forage sorghum is more economical to grow as compared to forage maize with fairly high economic returns. The total area under forages in 2012 in Punjab was 1.82 million hectares with green forage production of 38.8 million tons. The land area of Punjab under forage sorghum...

Sixty Holstein cows were assigned to two treatments at 21 d before calving and were group-fed a prepartum diet with or without yeast culture. After parturition, cows were individually fed one of five treatments for 140 d: 1) 21% forage neutral detergent fiber (NDF) without yeast culture, 2) 21% forage NDF with yeast culture, 3) 17% forage NDF without yeast culture, 4) 17% forage NDF with yeast ...

Food intake is a key biological process in animals, as it determines the energy and nutrients available for the physiological and behavioural processes. In herbivores, the abundance, structure and quality of plant resources are known to influence intake strongly. In ruminants, as the forage quality declines, digestibility and total intake decline. Equids are believed to be adapted to consume hi...