The work, done by Alltech’s In Vitro Fermentation Model (IFM) laboratory, offers a diagnostic tool to help mitigate diet formulation issues or can be used to maximize benefits, said Kamal Mjoun, a research scientist at the lab.
“We started looking at TMR [total mixed rations] and started to notice differences in TMRs despite that they were similar in composition,” he said. “That’s when we started focusing on different regions in the US to provide it as a service to our customers.”
Creation of the database of regional variations started as a curiosity, he said. But the information collected from analysis of about 1,500 samples may be used to design specific feeding strategies.
“The main goal here is to support the nutritionist and producers with a different support tool that is different than just analysis of the feed or one-time measure,” he said. The analysis offers more than a digestibility value or protein and fiber value, he added.
“While these data provide descriptive trends and differences among TMR from different regions (different feeding systems, forages and feeds), it can provide producers with valuable information about the strengths and limitations of their feeds in general and suggest strategies to build on or correct those rations to maximize rumen digestion and improve feed efficiency overall,” said Mjoun.
There are some generic statements that can be made about regional diet ingredients, but a farm-specific analysis might be more useful, he said. “Even within regions there are some wide differences,” he added.
The diagnostic tool offers greater insight to nutritionists or producers looking to boost the rumen digestion of their feed or troubleshoot, he said. “Also, IFM testing is recommended when major changes to the ration are made (forages, byproducts … ) [or] when cows are not performing to expectations,” he added.
Data details
The regional diet variations created could help track problems in dairy cattle performance based on ingredients in a TMR, said Mjoun. “It gives them an extra eye to look at what might be going on,” he added.
The diets were examined in several categories, he said. These include information about feed’s rate of fermentation, digestibility, volatile fatty acid production and fermentation pools – all factors in milk production variance.
Fermentation pools include fast, made up of soluble carbohydrates like starches, sugars and soluble fiber, and slow, comprised of fiber and non-dietary fiber, he said.
The regional diets included break downs like diets in the Northeast had larger percentages of fast pool fermentation per hour and the percentage of starch fermentation per hour was largest for diets from the Southwest, he said.
Feeds from the Southeast and West Southwest offer more fiber than those from the Midwest and Northeast, which had more starch, said company officials. But crude protein levels were higher in the samples from the Midwest and West Southwest samples.
Samples from the Midwest and Northeast had better quality forages, they said, as indicate fiber quality.
“We know that because of different feeding systems across the country, feed composition will influence the nutrient composition, however that information alone is not sufficient to rank the nutritive quality of the feed,” said Mjoun. “We postulated that these differences will translate to the fermentation profile of these samples. So this project was exploring available data from completed IFM tests and seeing if we can identify some key differences among regions.”
While in general the feed quality was higher in samples from the Midwest, the only surprise was that the quality from California samples was slightly low, he said. “I was expecting better quality feeds from California,” he added.