A method was developed to determine the contributions of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) to the nitrification potentials (NPs) of soils taken from forest, pasture, cropped, and fallowed (19 years) lands. Soil slurries were exposed to acetylene to irreversibly inactivate ammonia monooxygenase, and upon the removal of acetylene, the recovery of nitrification p...

Increasing plant species diversity has been proposed as a means for enhancing annual pasture productivity and decreasing seasonal variability of pasture production facing more frequent drought scenarios due to climate change. Few studies have examined how botanical complexity of sown swards affects cow performance. A 2-year experiment was conducted to determine how sward botanical complexity, f...

To investigate the maternal plane of nutrition and role of Se yeast on muscle Se concentration, plasma glutathione peroxidase (Gsh-Px) activity, and colostrum Se concentration in mares and their foals, 28 Quarter Horse mares (465 to 612 kg of BW, and 6 to 19 yr of age) were used in a study with a randomized complete block design. Mares were blocked by expected foaling date and randomly assigned...

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...