Exam 1 Lectures 3-4 Flashcards
What are contributons to grasslands to agriculture and society?
- A primary feed source for ruminant and other livestock production
- Provide a useful alternative or roation for row-cropping systems
- Legumes forages fix atomspheric N so they add significant quanitties of N to the soil-plant-animal system
- Biomass for renewable energy
What are the benefits of using alternative or rotational row-cropping systems?
- Maintaining or enhancing soil, fertility (quality)
- Useful in breaking pest cycles
What are the contributions of grassland to the environment?
- Effective in soil and water conservation
- Soils under grasslands accumulate organic matter and serve as a buffer to minimize the increase in atomospheric CO2
- Provide Habitat for wildlife
- Are an attractive feature of the natural landscape
- Serve as an excellent border between agricultural and urabn areas
- Potential renewable energy source
What is the benefit of soil and water conservation?
- It limits soil erosion
- Minimizes runoff of rainwater
- Reduces particulate manner in surface water
- Reducing leaching of nutrients
- Minimal Pesticide input
What are types of Grassland Production Systems?
- Forage crop production for harvesting
- Pastures sown with introduced forage species used for grazing (planted pastures)
- Rangeland
- Agroforestry- trees for timber are grown with forage crops
- Integrated livestock- wildlife forage systems (typically either B or C above) in which wildlife is harvested as a second crop (via hunting licenses often)
What falls under the category of worldwide grassland resource?
- Grasllands cover more than 40% of Earth’s ice-free terrestrial surface
- Land grazed by livestock is the larget single land-use type
- Forage is the most consumed in livestock feed in the world.
What falls under the category of United states grassland resource?
- 42% of land area is grazing land
- Forages are grown on apporximately 5x the acreage of grain crops
- Dollars values of forages, expressed in terms of their contribution to human food of animal origin exceeds the value of any crop
- In much of this area, an animal is the only means of harvesting the forage and converting it into high quality human food
What are the %’s of nutrients consumed in animal diets from forages for:
1. Beef cattle production
2. Milk Production
3. Horses
4. Sheep
5. Goats
6. Swine
1.83% BC
2.61%MP
3.72%H
4.91%Sh
5.91%G
6.15%Sw
Ruminats have high % of forage in diet
What is the proportion of total cocnentrate consumed by various classes of live stock like:
1. Beef cattle
2. Dairy cattle
3. Horses
4. Sheep & goats
5. Poultry
6. Swine
- 26% BC
- 17% DC
- 2.2% Horses
- 0.4% Sheep & Goats
- 25% Poultry
- 30% Swine
What are some examples that can argue that livestock production is inefficient and wasteful?
- Takes more grain to produce 1lb of weight gain for ruminats than non-ruminants
- Land used to grown grain for animals that could be used to grow food
- Animal wastes are a potential source of pollution
What are some examples that can argue that livestock production is efficient and not wasteful?
- For many ruminants, more than half of their diet is forage
- Forage often produced on land that cannot be used for growing food
- Nutrients in animal wastes are a good fertilizer for forages
What are beef cattle numbers? what does it consist of?
- Total # of beef cows was 895,000 in January 2022
- US total of 30.1million beef cows in 2022
- Florida second most # of beef cows behind kentucky
- As a nation Florida ranked 12th
- Florida is a major cattle and calf provider for feedlot industry in the mid-western and western USA
What are the Dairy cow #’s what do they consist of?
- Total head 105,000 in FL; 9.38 in USA
- Ranked in USA 20th
- Production per cow in florida is averaged 20,093 in 2021, US average of 23,948 lb in 2021
- Average FL herd size - 900
What are the #’s of the equine industry? Consisting of?
- Horse population is 400,000 in florida
- Total economic impact valued at 6.8 billion per year
- Diverse industry ( race horses, show horses, pleasure horses)
What are the #’s when it comes to pasture and range acreage?
- Grasslands occupy 5.4 million acres
- about 1.7 million acres of that is range
- 3.7 million acres improved perennial pasture
What are the #’s in Hay?
- Acreage 2021; 300,000
- Yield 2.5 tons/acre; 750,000 tons/year
- Value approx $141/ ton or a total of $106 million/year
What are the #’s in Corn silage?
- Acreage in 2021- 25,000
- Yield- 24 tons/acre ; 600,000 tons
What are the #’s of the value of livestock products?
- Poultry and livestock products produced in Florida = 1.57 billion dollars per year, account for 21% of Florida’s gross farm receipts
- Milk Cash receipts $471 million 2021
- Cow and calf cash receipts $ 546 million in 2021
What is the impact of climate on forage production?
- Temperature
- Rainfall distribution
- Solar radiation patterns
When it comes to climate on forage production in terms of temperature what are its components?
- Hot, humid summer averaging 89-93 and lows 69-72
- Cool temperaturs of 32 or below 10x each winter in Gainesville area
- In florida temperatures from mid-april through mid-october
When it comes to climate on forage production in terms of temperature what are its components?
- Hot, humid summer averaging 89-93 and lows 69-72
- Cool temperaturs of 32 or below 10x each winter in Gainesville area
- In florida temperatures from mid-april through mid-october
When it comes to climate on forage production in terms of Rainfall distribution what are its components?
- Rainfall distribution looks quite favorable for season-long pasture production
- Two major dry periods
- Dry periods are associated with thransition between fronal rainfall events during winter and conventional rains during summer
When it comes to climate on forage production in terms of Solar radiation patterns what are its components?
- Maximum solar radiation does not occur from June-August due to too many clouds and maximum rainfall
- Radiation and rainfall meaning when there is maximum solar radiation there is low rainfall, due to increased water stress for plants.
What are the two factors that have an impact on forage production?
- Drainage
- Fertilitiy
What are factors that make up drainage?
- Sandy soils that could be either excessively drained, poorly drained or are seasonally flooded
- Some have poor drainage due to hardpan, meaning a layer that is impermeable that does not let water through
- Water-holding capacity determing that florida soils is low whether well drained or poorly drained.
What factors make up fertility?
- The ability to provide nutrients for plants
- Florida soils are low in organic matters & clay, the suppliers of most soil numbers, naturally acidic.
What are factors that affect the yearly pattern of forage production in pastures?
- Typically have excess forage production in summer
- Periods when we are most likely to be deficient in forage are in fall and spring (Drought conditions limit growth)
- Forage supplies high in summer, hard to dry during short falls due to rainfall (tropical grasses make low quality silage)
What factors make up the components of forage nutritive value ?
- Species
- Maturity
When it comes to species used in florida that involved grasses of tropical or subtropical origin what do the #’s consist of?
- 4-6 % units lower in crude protein
- 8-15 % units lower in digestibility
- Species lack a seed-propagated , persistent, perennial legume
What would not be considered forage?
Corn grain seperated from stalk
Which animal would be the one that received the most nutrients from forage?
Beef cattle
