Pasture systems for grass-fed beef production in the Gulf Coast region were evaluated for profitability and sustainability over the period 2009/2010 to 2011/2012. May-weaned steers were divided into groups and randomly placed into different pasture systems. Data on input usage, output quantities, and carbon emissions were recorded and analyzed. The least complex grazing system yielded higher pr...

Pasture-based automatic milking systems (AMS) require cow traffic to enable cows to be milked. The interval between milkings can be manipulated by strategically allocating pasture. The current experiment investigated the effect of replacing an allocation of grazed pasture with grazed soybean (Glycine max) with the hypothesis that incorporating soybean would increase voluntary cow traffic and mi...

This study was conducted to investigate the infl uence of pasture intake on meat quality, lipid oxidation, and fatty acid composition of geese. One hundred twenty Dongbei White male geese (a local breed; BW = 878 ± 13 g; 28 d old) were randomly and equally divided into 2 treatments with 6 pens of 10 geese per treatment. The 2 treatments consisted of birds fed ad libitum a corn-based feed. One-h...

A number of factors influence dairy cow preference to be indoors or at pasture. The study reported here investigated whether herbage mass and distance affects preference and if continuously housed cows exhibited behavioral and production differences compared to cows that had free access to pasture. Dairy cows (n = 16) were offered a free choice of being in cubicle housing (1.5 cubicles/cow) or ...

Increasing the current precision of nutrient management will need analytical tools that aid in collecting site specific data. A technology with potential is hyperspectral remote sensing. Modern, portable spectroradiometers permit reflectance data in the spectral region between 350 and 2500 nm to be collected quickly. With the limited sampling, handling, and processing required the technology al...

Pasture is the primary feed source for NZ deer production with the greatest proportion grazed in situ. The quantity and quality of the pastures available to grazing deer varies markedly as a result of environmental factors and feed planning decisions by deer farmers. The grazing behaviour of deer responds to changes in pasture height and mass and the effect of pasture variables (height, pre -an...

In response to the major changes taking place across the Arctic climatic, environmental, economic, social, industrial there is an increasing need for improved land cover/land use change information, especially remotely sensed data, by indigenous reindeer herders on the characterization of pasture quality and migratory routes, such as vegetation distribution, snow cover, infrastructure developme...