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FORAGE-DAIRY RESEARCH UTILIZATION RESULTS SOUTHERN INDIANA FORAGE FARM
Research Progress Report 28 May 1962, Project 1100
C. M. Brown, N. S. Lundquist, and M. E. Heath, Department of Animal Sciences
Dairy Research Plans
One of the major objectives of establishing a dairy herd on Southern Indiana Forage Farm was to evaluate the utilization of forages that can be grown on the unglaciated sandstone shale soils. Early work on the Forage Farm demonstrated the feasibility of using both winter and summer annuals as silage, with the combination of wheat and smooth vetch as an example of a winter annual and sorghum as the summer annual. The wheat and vetch affords winter cover on the slopes, and the sorghum is adapted to the hot droughty summers. The more commonly grown perennials, alfalfa, orchardgrass, Ladino clover and others have been used in the seeding mixtures and have been compared with the annuals as forage for milking cows.
The yields of the spring cuttings of grasses and legumes are always the greatest, coming at a time when moisture is abundant and temperatures are moderate. These conditions are not advantageous for making high quality hay, but the time lapse between showers are, however, long enough that acceptible silage can be made.
Summer Phase
Both popular and technical literature indicate a management trend for larger herds away from pasture and toward either a system of green chop or silage feeding for the summer period. Of the two systems, the stored feeding arrangement seems to be gaining in popularity because of the economic and convenience factors. Most larger herds
have a permanent silage storage that can be filled with grass silage in the early spring and utilized during the summer and refilled in the early fall with corn or sorghum. In a great many of these herds dry lots, augers, fence line feeders or other types of labor saving equipment make these feeding systems practical.
Reports in the literature vary greatly as to the relative worth of the systems of feeding. Pratt and Davis (Hoard’s Dairyman 4-25-61) at the Ohio Experiment Station report that cows on green chop consumed a half more dry matter and produced a third more 4-percent fat-corrected milk than cows fed silage.
Foreman (1958) of Iowa (Jour. Dairy Sci. 1958) shows a slight advantage for gree: chop. However, Donker at Minnesota and Huffman at Michigan found the two systems about equal for the production of milk and consumption of dry matter.
General Procedure
Milk weights were recorded daily and each cow's milk was analyzed weekly for butterfat by the Babcock method. Production was reported as 4-percent fat-corrected milk (F.C.M.). The grain feeding was calculated on the F.C.M. basis and was adjusted weekly. All cows were weighed at 14-day intervals and were fed hay at . 5 pound per 100 pounds live weight on a lot average. Hay amounts were adjusted at 14-day intervals. Cows remained in the barn for the entire experimental period summer and winter. Iodized salt and steamed bonemeal were avail’
PURDUE UNIVERSITY • Agricultural Experiment Station • Lafayette, Indiana