Evaluation of a handheld NIRS instrument for determining haylage dry matter

Accurate forage dry matter (DM) concentration estimation is essential for maximizing animal performance and minimizing feed costs. One possible method of estimating DM for rebalancing rations daily involves the use of hand-held near infrared reflectance spectrometer instruments. The SCiO Cup is one of the hand-held instruments that could be used to estimate forage DM, but a thorough evaluation of its effectiveness has not been conducted. Haylage samples (n = 600) from 143 bunker silos were collected across New York State over three years, and vacuum packed for eventual analysis using a SCiO Cup. Samples ranged from pure alfalfa (Medicago L.) to pure grass but were mostly from mixed species. All but one sample received a DM value estimated from several available calibrations pre-loaded in the device. Sixty samples (representing 10% of the sample population) were too wet or dry to generate a result using the mixed silage calibration. For the remaining 90% of samples, SCiO Cup DM estimates were within 3.22%units of oven DM 80% of the time. Precision of the instrument evaluated with multiple scanning of samples using the mixed silage calibration was very good, with the average standard deviation of three values of 0.40 (n = 200). The mixed silage calibration was more effective for predicting DM of this set of haylages than either legume or grass silage calibrations.