Livestock water productivity: feed resourcing, feeding and coupled feed-water resource data bases

While water requirement for livestock is widely perceived as daily drinking water consumption, ~100 times more water is required for daily feed production than for drinking water. Increasing livestock water productivity can be achieved through increasing the water-use efficiency (WUE) of feed production and utilisation. The current paper briefly reviews water requirements for meat and milk production and the extent of, and reason for, variations therein. Life-cycle analysis (LCA) can reveal these variations in WUE but LCA are not tools that can be employed routinely in designing and implementing water-use-efficient feed resourcing and feeding strategies. This can be achieved by (1) choosing agricultural by-products and crop residues where water applications are partitioned over several products for example grain and straw (or food and fodder) contrary to planted forage production where water and land have to be exclusively allocated to fodder production, (2) select and breed WUE crops and forages and exploit cultivar variations, (3) increase crop productivity by closing yield gaps; and (4) increase per animal productivity to reduce the proportion of feed (and therefore water) allocated for maintenance requirement rather than productive purposes. Feed-mediated WUE of dairy buffalo production on almost completely (94%) by-product-based feeding systems could be reduced from 2350 to 548 L of water per kg of milk by the combined effect of increasing basal ration quality in a total mixed ration, which resulted in increased milk yield of ~30%, and by increasing crop productivity from 1 t (actual crop yield) to 3 t (potential crop yield). Exemplary, multi-dimensional sorghum improvement using staygreen quantitative trait loci (QTL) introgression for concomitant improvement of WUE of grain and stover production and stover fodder quality showed opportunities for further linked improvement in WUE of crop and livestock production. Metabolisable energy (ME) yield under water stress conditions measured in lysimeters, (which measure crop water transpired) ranged QTL dependent from 16.47 to 23.93 MJ ME per m3 H2O. This can be extrapolated to 8.23–11.97 MJ ME per m3 H2O evapotranspired under field conditions. To mainstream improvement in WUE of feed resourcing and feeding, the paper suggests the combination of feed resource databases with crop–soil–meteorological data to calculate how much water is required to produce the feed at the available smallest spatial scale of crop–soil–meteorological data available. A framework is presented of how such a tool can be constructed from secondary datasets on land use, cropping patterns and spatially explicit crop–soil–meteorological datasets

Extractable soil nutrient effects on feed quality traits of crop residues in the semiarid rainfed mixed crop–livestock farming systems of Southern India

In the mixed crop–livestock systems, while general relation among feed quality, productivity and soil nutrient management have been reported, information on the effects of extractable soil nutrients on crop residue (CR) feed quality traits is scarce (e.g. in semiarid regions of Karnataka, India). In view of the increasingly important role of CR as feed components, in these farming systems, generating such information is a relevant research issue for sustainable development. Here, we report the occurrence and strength of relationships among extractable nutrients in soils and CR feed quality traits, and the effects of improved nutrients input on feed availability and feed quality of CR. Soil samples were collected from farmers’ fields in the semiarid zone of Karnataka and analyzed for available phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulphur (S), zinc (Zn) and boron (B) using standard laboratory methods. Soil test results were clustered as low, medium or high based on the level of nutrient concentration. Four major farming systems involving nine crops and 419 farms were selected for on-farm trials. Under every sample farm, a plot with farmer’s practice (control) and improved fertilizer inputs (combined application of nutrients found deficient by soil testing) were laid. Performance of crops was recorded. Samples were collected for CR feed quality trait analysis using Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy. The result showed that for cereal and oil crops, extractable soil S was significantly negatively associated with anti-feed quality traits such as neutral detergent fibre (NDF), acid detergent fibre (ADF), acid detergent lignin (ADL) (P < 0.01), but significantly positively related to metabolizable energy (ME) and in vitro digestibility (P < 0.01). Extractable B and K levels were associated positively and significantly with NDF, ADF and ADL for oil crops and cereals. Crop level associations, for most crops, showed similar trend. Improved fertilizer inputs affected CR yield much more than it did the quality. It increased ME productivity (ME ha−1) and thereof the potential milk yield ha−1 by as high as 40 % over the control. Therefore, balanced nutrient inputs on crop land positively impact productivity of the livestock compartment of mixed crop–livestock farming system, and this knowledge can build on the currently perceived need and benefits of balanced nutrient replenishment in crop–livestock system

Technical innovations in processing cassava peels into new products for feeding livestock and fish and for food safety

Poster prepared for international conference on Integrated Systems Research for Sustainable Intensification in Smallholder Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria, 3-6 March 201