\u3ci\u3eAeschynomene\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eCarpon Desmodium\u3c/i\u3e: Legumes for Bahiagrass Pasture in Florida

Soils and climate are very diverse across Florida, and no single legume has state-wide adaptation. However, aeschynomene (Aeschynomene americana), an annual, and carpon desmodium (Desmodium heterocarpon) cv. Florida, a perennial, are the most commonly used legumes for grazing on the central and southern peninsula, which produces 65% of Florida\u27s beef calves. Both grow well with bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum), which is the main pasture grass, with ~1M ha state-wide. Circa 65K ha of bahiagrass contain at least limited quantities of aeschynomene and 14K ha contain carpon desmodium

Dairy Cow Performance on Pasture-Based Feeding Systems and in Confinement

Interest in grazing systems is growing among farmers in the USA as a means of reducing feed costs for lactating dairy cows. An experiment was conducted near Gainesville, FL to compare milk production and composition and milk income minus feed costs from two pasture-based systems with those of a conventional confinement housing system over a 276-d period. System 1 was based on a mixture of rye (Secale cereale L.), annual ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam.), crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum L.), and red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) during the winter-spring seasons and pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R.Br.) during the summerfall seasons. System 2 utilized a rye-ryegrass mixture (no clover) during winter-spring and bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) during summer-fall. Concurrently, cows managed in free-stall housing at the university farm comprised System 3. Cows in confined housing produced 20% more milk than cows on pasture, but feed cost of grazing cows was about one half that of confined cows. Milk income minus feed costs was $5.56,$5.84, and $5.34 cow-1 d-1 for Systems 1, 2, and 3, respectively

Intensive Rotational Grazing Systems for Dairying in a Subtropical Environment: Animal, Plant, and Soil Responses

Forage species, stocking rate, and supplementation rate effects upon performance of lactating dairy cows were studied. Forage mass and nutritive value and nutrient concentration in shallow groundwater also were measured. Cows (n = 44) grazed bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) or rhizoma peanut (Arachis glabrata), stocked at 4.9 or 7.4 cows ha-1, and 2.5 or 4.9 cows ha-1, respectively. Pelleted concentrate:whole cottonseed (80:20) was offered twice daily post milking at 1 kg per 2 or 3 kg of daily milk production. Cows grazing rhizoma peanut produced more (P = .076) milk per day but had greater (P = .028) loss of body condition. Higher stocking rates caused greater (P \u3e .070) weight loss. Greater supplementation increased (P \u3c .05) production of milk, fat and protein, but also increased (P \u3c .044) weight and body condition losses. Higher stocking rates and lower supplementation reduced pasture (P \u3c .001) herbage mass. Rhizoma peanut herbage was higher in nutritive value than bermudagrass. Nutrient concentrations in shallow groundwater were not affected by treatments. Use of pasture for lactating cows has potential in Florida, but low milk production and loss of body condition during summer pose management challenges

The Effects of Kinesio Tape on Postural Control in Female Athletes With Chronic Ankle Instability

Please refer to the pdf version of the abstract located adjacent to the title

Approaches toward Sustainable Forage-Livestock Systems: Strip-Planting a Legume into a Warm-Season Perennial Grass Pasture

Despite the demonstrated potential of rhizoma peanut (Arachis glabrata Benth.; RP) for grazing in the southeastern USA (Ortega-S. et al. 1992), high establishment cost and removal of land from production during establishment have limited its use to primarily hay production systems. The premise of this experiment is that strip-planting RP in existing bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum Flügge) pastures offers the opportunity to use grass forage during the legume establishment phase so that land need not be totally removed from grazing, while allowing successful establishment of the legume

Herbage Responses and Performance of Mature Horses Grazing Warm-Season Perennial Grass-Legume Mixed Pastures

Legume-grass mixtures may be a useful alternative to nitrogen-fertilized grass monocultures, but pasture and animal responses have not been assessed for pastures grazed by horses in Florida. This 2-yr study compared pasture and horse responses of continuously stocked, mixed pastures of rhizoma peanut (RP, Arachis glabrata Benth) and bahiagrass (BG, Paspalum notatum Flüggé) receiving 30 kg nitrogen (N)/ha (RP-BG) compared with BG pastures fertilized with 120 kg/N ha (BG-N) or with no N (BG-No N). Herbage mass was similar among treatments in 2020 and for most evaluation days in 2019. In 2019, stocking rate (AU/ha) was greater in BG-N (3.9) than in RP-BG (3.7) and BG-No N (3.1). In 2020, BG-No N (2.6) had the lesser stocking rate compared with BG-N (2.9) and RP-BG (2.9), with RP-BG not differing from BG-N. Herbage crude protein (CP) and digestible energy were similar across treatments in 2020, but they were greater for BG-N and RP-BG than BG-No N at some evaluation days in 2019. Except for CP, treatment did not affect nutrient digestibility by horses. Digestibility of CP was greatest for RP-BG in the late season. In the RP-BG treatment, proportion of RP in the pasture (~29%) was not affected by sampling date, and RP comprised 18.4% of the diet. Nonetheless, no differences were observed among treatments for body weight and condition score. The results indicate that intercropping legumes into warm-season perennial pastures can improve some measures of nutritive value and maintain horses’ body condition with similar stocking rate as N-fertilized bahiagrass pastures, while contributing to development of sustainable grazing systems for horses with reduced off-farm nitrogen inputs

DynPeak : An algorithm for pulse detection and frequency analysis in hormonal time series

The endocrine control of the reproductive function is often studied from the analysis of luteinizing hormone (LH) pulsatile secretion by the pituitary gland. Whereas measurements in the cavernous sinus cumulate anatomical and technical difficulties, LH levels can be easily assessed from jugular blood. However, plasma levels result from a convolution process due to clearance effects when LH enters the general circulation. Simultaneous measurements comparing LH levels in the cavernous sinus and jugular blood have revealed clear differences in the pulse shape, the amplitude and the baseline. Besides, experimental sampling occurs at a relatively low frequency (typically every 10 min) with respect to LH highest frequency release (one pulse per hour) and the resulting LH measurements are noised by both experimental and assay errors. As a result, the pattern of plasma LH may be not so clearly pulsatile. Yet, reliable information on the InterPulse Intervals (IPI) is a prerequisite to study precisely the steroid feedback exerted on the pituitary level. Hence, there is a real need for robust IPI detection algorithms. In this article, we present an algorithm for the monitoring of LH pulse frequency, basing ourselves both on the available endocrinological knowledge on LH pulse (shape and duration with respect to the frequency regime) and synthetic LH data generated by a simple model. We make use of synthetic data to make clear some basic notions underlying our algorithmic choices. We focus on explaining how the process of sampling affects drastically the original pattern of secretion, and especially the amplitude of the detectable pulses. We then describe the algorithm in details and perform it on different sets of both synthetic and experimental LH time series. We further comment on how to diagnose possible outliers from the series of IPIs which is the main output of the algorithm.Comment: Nombre de pages : 35 ; Nombre de figures : 16 ; Nombre de tableaux :

Short-Term Soil Organic Matter and Carbon Responses to Contrasting Grazing Intensities in Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems

Combining integrated crop-livestock systems under no-till management may improve soil organic matter (SOM) build up and improve soil C sequestration. Grazing cover crops appears as a possibility to combine crops and livestock in a farm system. Further SOM and soil C increase can be achieved by adding perennial grasses into crop rotations. However, the effect of grazing intensity in such systems are not fully understood. This 2-yr study investigated short-term effects of cropping system [winter cover crops-summer cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) and winter cover crops-summer bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum Flüggé) rotations], grazing intensity (no grazing, heavy, moderate, and light grazing), and N fertilization (34 and 90 kg N ha-1 ), on OM and soil C of the soil-surface (0-15 cm) and deep-soil (0-90 cm) under no-till. Preliminary results indicate that treatments containing bahiagrass improved SOM in 1.5 g kg-1 compared to winter grazing on cover crops-cotton systems (P = 0.017). There were no differences among treatments for soil total C stock (15.4 Mg ha-1) and particulate OM-C (4.8 Mg ha-1) at the 15-cm depth (P \u3e 0.1). Carbon concentration increased from 8.0 to 12.6 g kg-1 as aggregate fraction decreased from 250 – 2000 to \u3c 53 µm (P \u3c 0.001). Nonetheless, C stock was not affected by aggregate fraction, with each fraction containing 3.8 Mg C ha-1, on average. Carbon stocks from 0-15, 15-30, 30-60, and 60-90-cm depths did not differ among treatments (P = 0.743), totalizing 30.4 Mg C ha-1 in the soil profile. Long-term studies are necessary to better understand the role of cropping system and grazing intensities on soil OM and C responses on surface and deep soil