The nutritional evaluation of forage-based mixed rations in New Zealand using an in vitro gas production technique. 1: analytical survey

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock are an important consideration in environmental science. Estimating GHG production can be problematic at a farm or animal level, and requires controlled conditions to produce real data. An in vitro gas production technique (IVGPT) was developed to evaluate forage-based total mixed rations in digestion kinetics and GHG production. Two hundred and sixty samples of complete mixed rations (MR), which included a pasture component used in commercial lactating dairy herds, were collected around NZ across three calendar years, 2017-2019. Twenty of the 260 samples were 100% total mixed rations (TMR) with no pasture content. The samples were submitted for proximate analysis as well as IVGPT to generate GHG production figures. The results showed an average total gas production (TGP) of 129.82 ml/g dry matter (DM), 78.6% true digestibility (TDMD), 125.06 mg/g DM microbial biomass (MB), 20.16 g CH4/kg DM, and 12.8 MJME/kg DM. The average nutrient composition was dry matter (DM) 31.55%, crude protein (CP) 21.85%, neutral detergent fibre (NDF) 44.35%, and starch 7.03%. The IVGPT CH4 production was negatively correlated to NDF (r=-0.312), ADF (r=-0.193), TGP (r=-0.216), and was positively correlated with TDMD (r=0.250), apparent digestibility (ADMD) (r=0.614), starch (r=0.117) and volatile fatty acids (r=0.538). The MR diet showed a strong positive relationship with ADMD digestibility (P=0.01) and a negative relationship with fibre content (NDF, P=0.01 and ADF, P=0.01). However, CH4 production reduced linearly with increasing TGP (P=0.01). The results indicated that a greater CH4 production may be related to higher digestibility of mixed ration.