Performance and meat quality of native and continental cross steers grazing improved upland pasture or semi-natural rough grazing

Fraser, Malcolm; Davies, D. A. L.; Vale, J. E.; Nute, G.R.; Hallett, KG; Richardson, RI; Wright, I. A.

doi:10.1016/j.livsci.2008.10.008

Cited by 43 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The current study found no significant difference between the performance of dairy origin cattle (Holstein-Friesian steers) and suckler origin cattle (Charolais crossbred steers and heifers) on either the upland or lowland grasslands and lends support to the conclusions of Fraser et al (2009) that pasture type has a greater impact than breed on beef cattle performance.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Methane emissions from beef cattle grazing on semi-natural upland and improved lowland grasslands

Richmond

Wylie

Laidlaw

et al. 2015

Animal

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In ruminants, methane (CH 4 ) is a by-product of digestion and contributes significantly to the greenhouse gas emissions attributed to agriculture. Grazed grass is a relatively cheap and nutritious feed but herbage species and nutritional quality vary between pastures, with management, land type and season all potentially impacting on animal performance and CH 4 production. The objective of this study was to evaluate performance and compare CH 4 emissions from cattle of dairy and beef origin grazing two grassland ecosystems: lowland improved grassland (LG) and upland semi-natural grassland (UG). Forty-eight spring-born beef cattle (24 Holstein-Friesian steers, 14 Charolais crossbred steers and 10 Charolais crossbred heifers of 407 (s.d. 29), 469 (s.d. 36) and 422 (s.d. 50) kg BW, respectively), were distributed across two balanced groups that grazed the UG and LG sites from 1 June to 29 September at stocking rates (number of animals per hectare) of 1.4 and 6.7, respectively. Methane emissions and feed dry matter (DM) intake were estimated by the SF 6 tracer and n-alkane techniques, respectively, and BW was recorded across three experimental periods that reflected the progression of the grazing season. Overall, cattle grazed on UG had significantly lower ( P < 0.001) mean daily DM intake (8.68 v. 9.55 kg/day), CH 4 emissions (176 v. 202 g/day) and BW gain (BWG; 0.73 v. 1.08 kg/day) than the cattle grazed on LG but there was no difference ( P > 0.05) in CH 4 emissions per unit of feed intake when expressed either on a DM basis (20.7 and 21.6 g CH 4 per kg DM intake for UG and LG, respectively) or as a percentage of the gross energy intake (6.0% v. 6.5% for UG and LG, respectively). However, cattle grazing UG had significantly ( P < 0.001) greater mean daily CH 4 emissions than those grazing LG when expressed relative to BWG (261 v. 197 g CH 4 /kg, respectively). The greater DM intake and BWG of cattle grazing LG than UG reflected the poorer nutritive value of the UG grassland. Although absolute rates of CH 4 emissions (g/day) were lower from cattle grazing UG than LG, cattle grazing UG would be expected to take longer to reach an acceptable finishing weight, thereby potentially off-setting this apparent advantage. Methane emissions constitute an adverse environmental impact of grazing by cattle but the contribution of cattle to ecosystem management (i.e. promoting biodiversity) should also be considered when evaluating the usefulness of different breeds for grazing semi-natural or unimproved grassland.Keywords: methane, sulphur hexafluoride, beef cattle, grassland, grazing ImplicationsA study comparing upland and lowland grazing by beeforigin and dairy-origin cattle showed that, as a consequence of lower dry matter intake and fewer animals stocked per hectare, the BW gain of cattle grazing upland grassland was only 15% of those grazing intensively managed lowland pasture, but with 25% more methane emitted per kg of BW produced. Policies that encourage greater use of upland grassland for beef production may be co...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Methane emissions from beef cattle grazing on semi-natural upland and improved lowland grasslands

Richmond

Wylie

Laidlaw

et al. 2015

Animal

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“…These differences could be in part explained by differences in breed (Raes et al, 2003;Aldai et al, 2007b;Kraft et al, 2008), forage species (Collomb et al, 2002;Fraser et al, 2009) and/or stage of pasture maturity (Dewhurst et al, 2001;Vanhatalo et al, 2007), or the relatively high content of 18:2n-6 in the concentrate. The lack of increased desaturation and elongation metabolites from 18:2n-6 (substrate) and 18:3n-3 (competition) in this breed of cattle was surprising.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Length of concentrate finishing affects the fatty acid composition of grass-fed and genetically lean beef: an emphasis on trans-18:1 and conjugated linoleic acid profiles

Aldai

Dugan

Kramer

et al. 2011

Animal

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Intensively finishing cattle on a high-grain diet is generally used to enhance marbling, whereas extensively finishing on grass is known to provide improved muscle fatty acid profiles. The objective of this study was to evaluate to what extent intensive concentrate finishing (0, 1 or 2 months) can be combined with forage feeding without negatively affecting the fatty acid profile of genetically lean animals. Bulls from the ‘Asturiana de los Valles’ breed were reared under grazing conditions with/without final finishing on a barley-based concentrate: 0 months (control;n= 7), 1 month (n= 10) and 2 months (n= 7). Yearling bulls were slaughtered commercially at an average live weight of 516 ± 9.8 kg. Increasing the finishing time on concentrate significantly increased the saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, whereas polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) tended to decrease and it was not possible to increase the long-chain PUFA content in muscle tissue of this breed. An increase was observed for totaltrans-18:1 (average 5.5% with grainv.3.7% for grass). The 11t-18:1/10t-18:1 ratio was significantly higher in grass-fed (average 8.1) compared with grain-finished animals (average 1.1). Grass or limited concentrate finishing reduced the n-6/n-3 ratio in muscle tissue (average 3.6 for 0 and 1 month, and 4.9 for 2 months on grain finishing). The beef was within or close to the recommended values for human consumption (i.e. polyunsaturated/saturated > 0.45, n-6/n-3 < 4.0), and totaltrans-FA content was low. However, finishing increased the content of undesirabletrans-18:1 and conjugated linoleic acid isomers, particularly after 2 months, whereas grass finishing was judged to provide a healthier beef fatty acid profile.

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“…This results in a high nature conservation potential. The other side of the coin is a penalty in terms of animal growth and carcass quality (Bedoin and Kristensen, 2013;Fraser et al, 2009). In addition, the spatial footprint of livestock rearing is relatively high.…”

Section: Land Use Alternatives For Crop and Livestock Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting production and ecosystem services on the farm scale for evaluating land use alternatives

Lerouge

Sannen²,

Gulinck

et al. 2016

Environmental Science & Policy

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Land is a scarce resource and should be used in such a way that the increasing global demand for food and feed can be fulfilled, while ensuring sufficient levels of ecosystem services. While the demand on open space to deliver a multitude of services is increasing, drivers like global change and urbanization are undermining these services. Decision makers, from individual farmers to spatial planners, are in need of appropriate diagnostic tools to estimate trade-offs and synergies associated with land allocation and land use intensity decisions. This often implies trade-offs between food and biomass production and other non-provisioning ecosystem services. This paper presents an assessment on the farm scale using an integrated approach that combines spatial and economic analyses. It relies on the ecosystem services concept to evaluate land use alternatives. The analysis highlights current challenges to reach a societal optimal land allocation. INTRODUCTIONPopulation pressure results in an increasing demand for food and bio-energy products and hence also in an increasing demand for agricultural land (Meyfroidt et al., 2013;Tscharntke et al., 2012). This demand is in competition with the additional demand for land for residential, conservation, forestry, recreational, and other purposes (Zasada, 2011). With land as an increasingly scarce resource, spatial planners seek to balance land use allocation among competing stakeholders. This has led to a polarization in land use policies between demands for expanding urbanized fabric and the remaining open space used for agriculture, whilst natural areas are largely pushed back to relatively small and fragmented relics. Spatial planning has mainly focused on allocation of land to space demanding sectors and minimizing spatial conflicts. This approach falls short in considering present-day demands for multifunctionality, sustainability, ecosystem services, resilience and adaptive governance. While an integrative and spatially explicit approach to land allocation is highly needed, it is largely missing (Bomans et al., 2010b;Termorshuizen and Opdam, 2009). Particularly in strongly urbanized regions, the relation between the availability and use of space, and the potential services this space is able to provide to society, needs to be explored further. Increasing service delivery per unit of space can allow a decreasing spatial requirement for delivering this service, and hence, freeing space for other services. Fragmented peri-urban landscapes in particular, where interfaces between different forms of land use and associated actors are plenty, are in need of innovative concepts for land use allocation. Meanwhile, concepts of multifunctionality and ecosystem services already bridge the distinction between classical sectors like agriculture, nature and forestry. In the light of food and biomass production, the principal challenge is to simultaneously assess and maximize production as well as the other ES provided by bioproductive land (Balmford et al., 2012) which inevi...

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Performance and meat quality of native and continental cross steers grazing improved upland pasture or semi-natural rough grazing

Cited by 43 publications

References 60 publications

Methane emissions from beef cattle grazing on semi-natural upland and improved lowland grasslands

Methane emissions from beef cattle grazing on semi-natural upland and improved lowland grasslands

Length of concentrate finishing affects the fatty acid composition of grass-fed and genetically lean beef: an emphasis on trans-18:1 and conjugated linoleic acid profiles

Revisiting production and ecosystem services on the farm scale for evaluating land use alternatives

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