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Dietary options to reduce the environmental impact of milk production

Wilkinson, J.M.; Garnsworthy, P.C.

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Authors

J.M. Wilkinson

P.C. Garnsworthy



Abstract

A range of options was explored to test the hypothesis that diets for dairy cows could be formulated to reduce the carbon footprint (CFP) of feed, increase efficiency of conversion of potentially human-edible feed into milk, increase nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and reduce methane (CH4) emissions per kg milk. Diets based on grazed grass, grass silage, maize silage or straw, supplemented with raw material feeds, were formulated to meet requirements for metabolizable energy and metabolizable protein for a range of daily milk yields. At similar levels of milk yield, NUE, predicted CH4 emissions and diet CFP were generally higher for diets based on maize silage than for those based on grazed grass, grass silage or straw. Predicted CH4 emissions and human-edible proportion decreased, while NUE increased with the increasing level of milk yield. It is concluded that there is potential to reduce the environmental impact of milk production by altering diet formulation, but the extent to which this might occur is likely to depend on availability of raw material feeds with low CFPs.

Citation

Wilkinson, J., & Garnsworthy, P. (2017). Dietary options to reduce the environmental impact of milk production. Journal of Agricultural Science, 155(2), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021859616000757

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 5, 2016
Online Publication Date Oct 4, 2016
Publication Date Mar 1, 2017
Deposit Date Jan 3, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Journal of Agricultural Science
Print ISSN 0021-8596
Electronic ISSN 1469-5146
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 155
Issue 2
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021859616000757
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/970469
Publisher URL https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-agricultural-science/article/div-classtitledietary-options-to-reduce-the-environmental-impact-of-milk-productiondiv/EA2FD1C25C7671F1A57B1FC053E12D23

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