This paper assesses the influence of heat and drought stress on the economic performance of the European dairy sector. Climatic data from the Gridded Agro-Meteorological data in Europe were combined with dairy enterprise data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network, resulting in a data set of 4412 farms in 22 European Union (EU) countries over the period 2007–2013. Since the performance of dairy farms is influenced by the context in which they operate, farms were grouped into areas representing similar climatic conditions through the use of a latent class analysis. Technical efficiency (TE) and economic downside risk were used as performance indicators against which the effect of climatic stress factors was evaluated. TE was estimated using a ‘true-fixed’ effect stochastic frontier model. Economic downside risk was based on gross margin deviations. Regression analysis suggests a significant negative effect of drought and heat stress on both TE and the downside gross margin difference in most climatic classes, with few exceptions. Results imply that both drought and heat stress-related issues need to be considered when designing adaptation strategies to address threats to the economic performance of the EU dairy sector.

Genetic gains (ΔG) are determined by the breeders' equation ΔG = [(ck σ2G)/(y σP)], where c, k and y are the parental control, a function of the selection intensity and number of years to complete one selection cycle, respectively, while σ2G and are σP the genetic variance and the square root of the phenotypic variance. Plant breeding programs should deliver above 1% of annual genetic gains after testing and selection. The aim of this research was to estimate genetic gains in potato breeding after testing of cultivars released in western Europe in the last 200 years under high yield potential, and stress-prone environments affected by a pest (late blight) or daylength. The annual genetic gains for tuber yield and flesh's starch content for potato breeding in Europe were about 0.3 and −0.1%, respectively, thus telling that the realized genetic gains of foreign cultivars for both traits are small or negative, respectively, in the Nordic testing sites. The national annual productivity gains in potato grown in Sweden were on average 0.7% in the last 60 years while the genetic gains for tuber yield considering only the table cultivars released after the 2nd World War were about 0.36%, thus showing that breeding contributed just above ½ of it. Furthermore, genetic gains for breeding low reducing sugars in the tuber flesh, and high host plant resistance to late blight were small (<0.2% per year). These results highlight that genetic gains are small when testing bred germplasm outside their target population of environments.

The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of chitosan instead of microbial inoculants on fermentation profile, losses, chemical composition, in vitro degradation, and aerobic stability of sugarcane silage (SS). Forty experimental silos (PVC tubes with 28 cm i.d., 25 cm height) were used in a randomized block design to evaluate the following treatments: (I) Control (CON): SS with no additive; (II) LB: SS ensiled with 5.0 × 105 colony forming units (CFU) of Lactobacillus buchneri (NCIM 40788)/g as-fed; (III) LPPA: SS ensiled with 1.6 × 105 CFU of L. plantarum and 1.6 × 105 CFU of Pediococcus acidilactici/g as-fed; and (IV) Chitosan (CHI): SS ensiled with 6 g/kg dry matter (DM) of chitosan. Microbial inoculation of SS reduced (P ≤ 0.05) silage pH relative to CON and CHI treatment. The LPPA decreased ammonia-nitrogen and LB decreased (P ≤ 0.05) ethanol content and increased acetic acid content relative to other treatments. The LPPA-silos had higher (P ≤ 0.05) gas losses and lower (P ≤ 0.05) DM recovery than other treatment silos. Consequently, LPPA reduced (P ≤ 0.05) DM and non-fibre carbohydrates and increased (P ≤ 0.05) neutral detergent fibre (NDF) silage content compared to other treatments. Treatments did not affect (P ≥ 0.212) DM and NDF in vitro degradation and silage pH after aerobic exposure. However, LB reduced silage temperature after aerobic exposure. Thus, LB reduces alcoholic fermentation and improves SS aerobic stability. Inoculation of LPPA reduces DM recovery and negatively affects SS chemical composition. Although CHI positively affects SS conservation relative to CON, it shows higher gas losses and decreased SS temperature after aerobic exposure compared to LB.

Intercropping maize (Zea mays L.) with cover crops (Crotalaria spectabilis and Urochloa ruziziensis) is a sustainable cultivation strategy that can generate ecological benefits combined with grain yield (GY). However, cover crops may require nitrogen (N) fertilization management to be adjusted to obtain a high GY in intercropping systems. This study was carried out over 2 years in southeastern Brazil using randomized complete block design in a split-plot scheme. The plots were composed of three cropping systems: sole maize, maize + U. ruziziensis and maize + C. spectabilis. The subplots consisted of four N levels: 0, 70, 140 and 210 kg/ha. The GY of the maize + U. ruziziensis may be reduced by 13% compared to the sole maize. The GY of the sole maize increased up to 11.3 Mg/ha for 95 kg/ha of N in the first year and 6.7 Mg/ha for 169 kg/ha of N in the second year. The GY of the maize + U. ruziziensis intercropping system showed linear increments of 120 kg/ha for every 10 kg/ha of N applied. In the maize + C. spectabilis intercropping, GY increased up to 9.8 Mg/ha for 201 kg/ha of N in the first year, without any variation during the second year. The land equivalent ratio (LER) of intercropping was increased by more than 35% compared to that of sole maize, and N fertilization increased the LER of the sole maize and maize + U. ruziziensis intercropping. Maize intercropping had higher LER values with greater demand for nitrogen to obtain similar yields compared to sole maize cropping.

Silvopastoral systems (SPSs) are sustainable alternatives for pasture intensification. Management practices such as thinning are options to diminish competition for resources between pasture and trees, ensuring appropriate forage production. The objective of this study was to evaluate the productive and nutritive traits of Piatã palisadegrass (Urochloa brizantha cv. BRS Piatã) after thinning the forest component of a SPS. Forage production and nutritive value, along with microclimate variables were assessed in a SPS and in an intensive system (INT) in São Carlos-SP, Brazil, from 2016 to 2018. The INT was a full sun pasture of Piatã palisadegrass, while the SPS was established with Piatã palisadegrass shaded by eucalyptus (Eucalyptus urograndis clone GG100) spaced 15 × 2 m but thinned to 15 × 4 m before the onset of the experiment. In the SPS, measurements were made under the tree row (SPS_1), 3.75-m (SPS_2), 7.5-m (SPS_3) and 11.25-m (SPS_4) distant from the North row. Forage accumulation in the two systems were similar, whereas the pre-grazing forage mass in most of the SPS positions were smaller than that of the INT during the autumn of 2017 and summer of 2018. Crude protein (CP) content was greater in the SPS than in the INT in most positions and seasons. Forage production was favoured by the thinning of the trees mainly in the seasons close to the event, while forage CP was consistently greater in the understory pasture. Thinning of trees in SPSs can be adopted to provide forage production similar to intensive pastures with higher protein content.

To study the impact of plant density on Chenopodium quinoa (c.v. CICA-17) achene yield and its relationship with morphology, leaf anatomy and gas exchange in the absence of water stress, field trials were conducted at 1995 m asl in Northwestern Argentina. Two plant densities were evaluated; low density (LD) 7.2 plants/m (120 240 pl/ha) and high density (HD) 27.9 plants/m (465 930 pl/ha). HD treatment caused light competition, inducing morphological and anatomical changes in Quinoa plants. Plants grown under HD conditions showed decreases in plant height and stem diameter, lower stomatal dimensions and densities, and thinner leaf blades. Compensation strategies such as increases in specific leaf area and a higher number chloroplasts per palisade cell were observed, nevertheless these changes did not fully compensate C absorption and gas exchange limitations, therefore limiting the uptake of N and P and resulting in a 53.2% lower yield of HD compared to LD. Considering the ability of quinoa plants to change its morphology and anatomy, further studies with intermediate plant densities are necessary in order to determine if it is possible to achieve higher yields and to increase the efficiency in the use of the resources.

An isotope dilution model for partitioning phenylalanine and tyrosine uptake by the liver of the lactating dairy cow is constructed and solved in the steady state. An original ten-pool model is adopted and solved by cleaving it into two five-pool sub-models, one representing phenylalanine and the other tyrosine. If assumptions are made, model solution permits calculation of the rate of phenylalanine and tyrosine uptake from portal vein and hepatic arterial blood supply, hydroxylation, and synthesis and degradation of constitutive protein. The model requires the measurement of plasma flow rate through the liver in combination with amino acid concentrations and plateau isotopic enrichments in arterial and portal and hepatic vein plasma during a constant infusion of [1-13C]phenylalanine and [2,3,5,6-2H]tyrosine tracers. It also requires estimates of the rate of oxidation and protein export secretion. Analysis of measurement errors in experimental enrichments and infusion rates on model solutions indicated that accurate values of the intracellular and extracellular enrichments are central to minimising errors in the calculated flows. Solving the model by cleaving into two five-pool schemes rather than solving the ten-pool scheme directly is preferred as there appears to be less compounding of errors and the results consistently appear to be more biologically feasible. The model provides a means for assessing the impact of hepatic metabolism on amino acid availability to peripheral tissues such as the mammary gland.

The objective was to establish a multivariate model using two complementary multivariate statistical techniques, factor analysis and multiple stepwise regression to predict carcase characteristics, carcase cuts, internal fat, viscera and loin eye area from body measurements of goats Boer mestizos. Thirty-two goats were used, with initial average weights of 3.3 ± 0.61 kg and final average weights of 16 ± 2.5 kg. Before slaughter and after 16 h of fasting, body weight was measured along with the biometric measurements (BMs) of each animal: body length, withers height, croup height, chest width, croup width, croup perimeter, thoracic perimeter, leg length and thigh circumference. The half carcases were sectioned in six anatomical regions that made up the commercial cuts: neck, palette, rib, handsaw, loin and ham. BMs showed a high correlation with a few exceptions; most of the correlations are above 50%. What also happens with the Carcass weight and cuts were also correlated above 50% with BMs. The data presented an index for the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test of 0.80, demonstrating the adequacy of the factor analysis. Through factor analysis, it was possible to observe that the first two factors extracted accumulated 75.47% of the total variance of the studied characteristics. Moderate to high and positive correlations of morphological characteristics with body weight, carcase characteristics and primary carcase cuts suggested the adequacy of morphological characteristics as criteria for early selection of crossbred Boer goats for their body weight and carcase characteristics without slaughter.

The voluntary digestible organic matter intake (DOMI) of mature barley crops (Hordeum spp.) for sheep depends largely on straw quality. Direct measurement of DOMI is laborious; consequently, the research reported here evaluated indicator traits for improving barley straw DOMI by crop breeding. It hypothesized that some indicator traits for straw quality are heritable, facilitate genetic gain in DOMI, and reveal straw properties that constrain genetic gain. In 4 years, 32 genotypes of barley were grown at ICARDA, northern Syria, with no fertilizer in one year and supplementary irrigation in another. Indicator traits for predicting DOMI included in situ straw dry matter losses (DML) at nine incubation times (0–120 h), four parameters of the DML curve, seven laboratory tests, grain yield and straw yield. Heritability (h2) was highest for traits associated with indigestible cell wall constituents, including potential DML (h2 = 0.61), DML at 48–120 h of incubation (h2 = 0.48–0.58), and acid detergent fibre (ADF) (h2 = 0.41). Heritability was lower for DOMI itself (h2 = 0.24), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) (h2 = 0.20), and total Kjeldahl nitrogen (h2 = 0.17), and was lowest for DML at 6–18 h (h2 = 0.08–0.09) and the in situ parameters Lag and relative loss rate of slowly degradable DM (h2 ≤ 0.03). Correlations between indicator traits and DOMI tended to increase with heritability. Grain and straw yields were not correlated with DOMI; of these, only grain yield was heritable. In conclusion, genetic gain in barley straw nutritive value can be achieved by crop breeding under diverse growing conditions, using indicator traits associated with indigestible cell wall constituents.

Records on growth and reproductive characteristics collected from 1993 to 2013 at the Breeding Station of Kermani sheep, south-east of Iran, were used for estimating genetic parameters related to parent-of-origin effects. The studied growth traits were birth weight (BWT), weaning weight (WWT), six-month weight (6MW), average daily gain from birth to weaning (ADG1), and average daily gain from weaning to six months of age (ADG2). The reproductive traits were litter size at birth per ewe lambing (LSB), litter size at weaning per ewe lambing (LSW), the sum of litter weight at birth per ewe lambing (LWB), and the sum of litter weight at weaning per ewe lambing (LWW). Models with and without imprinting (maternal and paternal) effects were compared by applying Akaike's information criterion (AIC). Maternal imprinting effects explained 14, 7, 24 and 5% of the phenotypic variances for BWT, WWT, 6MW and ADG1, respectively and their inclusion in the model decreased direct heritability estimates for BWT (from 0.07 to 0.05), WWT (from 0.29 to 0.23), 6MW (from 0.26 to 0.12) and ADG1 (from 0.20 to 0.17). Imprinting effects did not affect ADG2 and studied reproductive traits. The results indicated that a considerable proportion of the maternal imprinting effects overlap with direct additive genetic and maternal effects. Therefore, imprinting effects may be crucial for the genetic assessment of BWT, WWT, 6MW and ADG1 in Kermani sheep.

One of the most important aspects of genetic evaluation (GE) is the definition of contemporary groups (CG), commonly defined as animals of the same sex born in the same herd, year and season. The objective of this study was to use an aridity index (AI) to classify season and evaluate the implications on the GE of Braunvieh cattle. A data set with 32 777 and 22 448 birth weight (BW) and weaning weight adjusted to 240 days (WW) records, respectively, was used to compare two methods of classification of climatic seasons to be used in the definition of CG for GE models. The first method considered rain season criterion (RC), and the second method is a proposed classification using an AI. Both methods were compared using two approaches. The first approach examined differences in mixed models using the RC and AI season to select the best model for BW and WW, evaluated by different goodness of fit measures. The second approach considered fitting a GE model including the season classifications into the CG structure. Lower probability values for season effect and better goodness of fit measures were obtained when the season was classified according to the AI. Results showed that although differences are small, the AI allows a better model fitting for live-weight traits than RC and revealed a re-ranking effect on expected progeny differences data. Further analysis with other traits would demonstrate the extended utility of AI indicators to be considered for fitting models under a climatic change environment.

The great demographic pressure brings tremendous volume of beef demand. The key to solve this problem is the growth and development of Chinese cattle. In order to find molecular markers conducive to the growth and development of Chinese cattle, sequencing was used to determine the position of copy number variations (CNVs), bioinformatics analysis was used to predict the function of ZNF146 gene, real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used for CNV genotyping and one-way analysis of variance was used for association analysis. The results showed that there exists CNV in Chr 18: 47225201-47229600 (5.0.1 version) of ZNF146 gene through the early sequencing results in the laboratory and predicted ZNF146 gene was expressed in liver, skeletal muscle and breast cells, and was amplified or overexpressed in pancreatic cancer, which promoted the development of tumour through bioinformatics. Therefore, it is predicted that ZNF146 gene affects the proliferation of muscle cells, and then affects the growth and development of cattle. Furthermore, CNV genotyping of ZNF146 gene was three types (deletion type, normal type and duplication type) by Real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (qPCR). The association analysis results showed that ZNF146-CNV was significantly correlated with rump length of Qinchuan cattle, hucklebone width of Jiaxian red cattle and heart girth of Yunling cattle. From the above results, ZNF146-CNV had a significant effect on growth traits, which provided an important candidate molecular marker for growth and development of Chinese cattle.

Wet winter conditions can create animal welfare issues in feedlots if the pen surface becomes a deep, wet, penetrable substrate. Feedlot pens with a clay and gravel base (N = 30) bedded with 150 mm (W15) and 300 mm (W30) depth of woodchips were compared to a control treatment with no bedding over a 109-day feeding period, while irrigated to supplement natural rainfall. The pad substrate was measured for variables which would affect cattle comfort and value of the substrate for composting. The penetrable depth of control pens was higher than both woodchip-bedded treatments from week 2, and increased until the end of the experiment. Meanwhile these scores were steady for W30 throughout the experiment, and increased for W15 only after week 10. Moisture content of the pad was higher throughout the experiment in the control pens than in the woodchip-bedded pens. In the control pens, the force required to pull a cattle leg analogue out of the pen substrate was three times that required in woodchip-bedded treatments. The W15 treatment increased C : N in the substrate to the upper limit of suitability for composting, and in W30, C : N was too high for composting after a 109-day feeding period. Overall, providing feedlot cattle with 150 or 300 mm of woodchip bedding during a 109-day feeding period improved the condition of the pad substrate for cattle comfort by reducing penetrable depth and moisture content of the substrate surface stratum, but composting value decreased in W30 over this feeding period duration.