Balanced protein diet can cut nitrogen build up on dairy farms

Washington, June 8 (ANI): Up to 35 percent of the accumulated nitrogen on dairy cattle farms can be reduced with a balanced diet in protein content without reducing milk production, suggests a new research.

Improving the nutrition of dairy cattle is a key instrument for reducing the environmental problems caused by the accumulation of nitrogen on dairy farms.

Now, the new research conducted in the Basque Institute for Agricultural Development and Research, Neiker-Tecnalia, and led by the biologist Haritz Arriaga in collaboration with the Universitat Autonoma in Barcelona, has demonstrated that up to 35 percent of the accumulated nitrogen on dairy farms in the Basque Country can be reduced with a balanced diet in protein content without reducing milk production.

The research was conducted in 64 commercial farms in the Basque Country, in which it was shown that on most of these (70 percent) the diet of the lactating cows was excessively rich in proteins.

So, the purpose of farmers' should be an adjustment of protein consumption to the nutritional needs of the cattle without reducing the production and quality of milk.

In this sense, results demonstrated that up to 35 percent of the accumulated nitrogen on dairy farms in the Basque Country can be reduced with a balanced diet of proteins.

The results also demonstrated that nutritional strategies can reduce the accumulation of nitrogen on high-density dairy farms. The concentration of this chemical element per hectare of available soil can be reduced by 11.2 percent through the optimisation of protein content in rations. (ANI)