Feeding Systems with Legumes to Intensify Dairy Farms - cgiar

U = overall mean
Tj = effect of the n-nth treatment (i=3)
Eij = experimental error
Treatments were as follows: T1, cut-and-carry grass (king grass)
restricted to milking; T2, 50% amount of cut-and-carry grass
provided in T1 and 50% of Centrosema provided in T3, restricted to
milking; and T3, 100% Centrosema restricted to milking.
Milking was done manually, once a day with calf on foot. After milking,
calves were allowed to suckle for 5 minutes and were then transferred to
pens. Crossbred dairy Gyr x Holstein cows were used and left to graze on the
pasture 6 hours/day, after which they were taken to a pen where they
received chopped king grass.
Control variables were: consumption of supplementary forage; milk
production, kg/cow per day during periods of maximum and minimum
precipitation; production costs of supplementary feed: and economic
evaluation of results.
To measure consumption of supplementary forage (kg DM/cow per
day), Centrosema and king grass were separately cut, carried, and chopped
with machete and supplied at milking. Forage on offer and forage rejected
were monitored the first 15 days of adjustment to determine the amount of
forage needed during the experimental phase and thus estimate average
intake per treatment.
Milk production (kg/cow per day) was measured 4 days per week. To
date of this report, production data had already been determined for two
periods of maximum and minimum precipitation.
Costs of producing supplementary feed considered establishment costs
and maintenance costs per hectare and the cost of cutting and transporting
forage.
The following evaluations were carried out to calculate total volume of
forage (C. macrocarpum and king grass)/ha per year: forage availability (kg
DM/ha) in random samples taken at the beginning of each grazing cycle;
time of pasture recovery: and pasture coverage at 20, 45, and 60 days after
initiating grazing.
Economic merit was evaluated using the following formula:
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