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PLAINVIEW – West Texas forage producers need to decide if they are going to offer a service with the forage they grow, or simply market it as a commodity on a least-cost basis. Whichever, a new standard of interpreting forage quality – Relative Feed Quality – may come into play, said Dr. Dan Undersander, University of Wisconsin Extension forage agronomist, at a recent Texas Alliance for Water Conservation forage conference in Plainview.
Undersander was a featured speaker at a forage management workshop sponsored by the Texas Alliance for Water Conservation and Texas Cooperative Extension.
"Relative Feed Value or RFV has been the quality standard for many years," Undersander said. "In 2001 the National Research Council Requirements for Dairy Animals recommended a new standard, Relative Feed Quality or RFQ. It uses a summative equation for total digestible nutrients rather than estimating total digestible nutrients from acid detergent fiber to get RFV."
Relative Feed Quality is an appropriate and accurate energy estimate for all feedstuffs, including those grown on the Texas Plains, he said.
"RFV was a good value but we can do better now," Undersander said. "RFQ is calculated on fiber and digestibility. It helps you understand the quality of your forage so you can command a better price from customers who demand quality; customers like dairy operators.
"Successful dairies adapt to using locally available forages rather than paying to haul it in from afar. Some dairies are maximizing grain in their rations to reduce costs and improve ration consistency, because grain is rather cheap right now. That may change with a new farm bill, which could boost grain prices. The downside of substituting grain for forage in dairy rations is reduced herd life for milk cows."
Dairies are also specializing as they grow, Undersander said. As a result, dairy operators either run a feedstuffs division separate from the milking division or contract for X-amount of feedstuffs/forages with local growers.
"Those contracts run the gamut...from all or a portion of the needed feedstuffs to supplying a total mixed ration," Undersander said. "Services that you can offer with a contract can include a choice of hay or silage, storage, and fineness of the chop or a specific size hay bale.
"Another contract service you can provide is raising calves and heifers," he said. "Some dairies would rather contract for this service than keep it in-house and bear an extra cost for labor or waste handling."
Experience with grazing beef stocker cattle could be easily transferred to raising calves or growing heifers, he said. Young dairy heifers should ideally gain about 1.8 pounds per day in order to develop good frame size, have good first-lactation milk production and calve easily.
"Achieving and not exceeding this rate of gain is very doable here in West Texas, where cool- and warm-season pastures can provide almost year-round grazing," Undersander said.
Sorghum silage could be an economical and profitable crop for forage producers if they choose hybrids high in fiber digestibility and consistent in quality. Contracting for large amounts of consistent high-quality forage is a plus for dairy operators. It allows them to balance their ration and then feed for optimum milk production without the fuss of dealing with changes in quality, Undersander said.
"You can complement high-quality sorghum silage by double-cropping triticale or wheat for silage," he said. "Small grains produce tonnage efficiently without much irrigation. This saves water that can later be used on a summer sorghum silage crop. Both crops are also suitable grazing crops for raising calves and heifers.
"When you harvest forages for dairy use, remember that quality relates to intake. Milk cows prefer the highest quality. So you should harvest at the correct stage. Cutting earlier for quality means less tonnage. Later cutting means more tonnage but less quality. As a result, you need to get a premium for high-quality forage that will offset less tonnage/product from cutting early."
Growers who plan to market silage or hay should also understand their harvesting and storage losses. Hay making losses generally range from 10 to 20 percent of dry crop matter, while silage harvesting losses are often less than 5 percent.
The flip side is that storage losses are higher for silage than for hay. Hay storage losses are typically less than 5 percent, so there is little difference in selling the product direct from the field or from the haystack or barn, Undersander said.
"Storage losses for silage generally run 15 to 20 percent of dry matter, so the value of your silage needs to be 15 to 20 percent higher than green chop from the field if you are to break even on a per-acre basis," he said. "You also need to figure in the cost of storing silage. A good rule of thumb is $20 to $30 per dry matter ton of silage.
"Mycotoxins can also affect the value of your product," Undersander said. "Mycotoxins are a hazard to humans and livestock. They reduce feed intake and milk production in dairy cows, weaken the immune system and predispose the herd to other health problems."
Mycotoxin contamination is more of a threat for silage producers than hay producers, he said. Proper curing limits their presence in most hay crops. Choosing resistant hybrids and packing, storing and dispensing silage with care are the best preventive measures for silage producers.
Limiting ash content in forages is also important in producing forages with high relative feed quality, he said. Data from the University of Wisconsin Marshfield Soil and Forage Testing Laboratory indicates that higher ash content lowers total digestible nutrients.
"Ash is essentially soil contamination," Undersander said. "There are simple steps we can take to minimize ash in our forages: adjust your mower blades correctly, lay windrows on crop stubble, and rake the forage, not the ground."
"If you plan to market to dairies, remember that they depend on consistent supplies of high-quality forage to maintain milk production levels," Undersander said. "That's why top-quality, high-energy forage products command a premium in the dairy market.
Information on the alliance is online at: http://www.orgs.ttu.edu/forageresearch/TAWC.htm .
Funded by the Texas Water Development Board, the alliance is a joint effort of Texas Tech University, Texas Cooperative Extension, the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service and the ARS Cropping Systems Research Laboratory, and several producers in Hale and Floyd Counties.