Performance of female Holstein calves (n = 60) were evaluated in three step-down milk feeding programmes: step-down 1 (STP1: 7.5 litres/day milk from days 1 to 21, 6 litres/day milk from days 22 to 42, 4 litres/day milk from days 43 to 63 and 2 litres/day milk from days 64 to 84 of the study); step-down 2 (STP2; 7.5 litres/day milk from days 1 to 21, 6 litres/day milk from days 22 to 42 and 2 litres/day milk from days 43 to 63 of the study); and step-down 3 (STP3; 7.5 litres/day milk from days 1 to 21, 4 litres/day milk from days 22 to 42 and 2 litres/day milk from days 43 to 63 of the study). Intakes of starter were monitored daily and body weight (BW), average daily gain (ADG) and wither height (WH) were measured monthly. Calves in STP3 had lower dry matter intake between 22 and 42 days than STP2 animals, but starter intake was greater in STP2 and STP3 calves than those in the STP1 treatment between 43–63 and 64–84 days. Total ADG was greater in STP2 and STP3 animals than in STP1 calves. No effect of treatment was observed on breeding age, BW, WH or service per conception. In addition, conception rate at first breeding was not influenced by treatment. It was concluded that the STP2 and STP3 milk feeding regimes improved performance in calves and there was no benefit in feeding milk for longer than 63 days in terms of breeding outcomes.

The current study investigated the influence of selection for body weight (BW) on growth curve parameters in two lines of Japanese quail through a mixed model approach. Live BWs of 1400 Japanese quail were recorded at 3-day intervals from hatching to 42 days of age. Birds were distributed equally across lines (selected and control) and sexes (male and female). The asymptotic weight parameter (β0) values were always higher in Gompertz than Richards models in both lines. The values of β0 were higher in the selected than control lines and in females than males across models. Differences were found in the inflection point for age and weight across lines and sexes. Values of the growth rate parameter (β2) ranged from 0.06 to 0.10 in both models, favouring males over females in both lines. Lower weights at the inflection point of both models were observed in the control line. Determination coefficient (R2) of both models in different genetic groups and sexes was similar. Mean square error (MSE) values of the Gompertz model were lower for females in selected v. control lines. In contrast, MSE values of the Richards model were lower for selected males v. control males. According to the criteria of choice (highest R2 and lowest MSE, Akaike information criterion and Bayesian information criterion), the Richards model was considered the best fitting model for the growth data of males, while the Gompertz model was the best for growth data of female quails in both lines.

The objective of the current research was to evaluate the fermentative characteristics of silage made with the upper third section of cassava (Manihot esculenta) plants with added condensed tannin levels of 0, 25, 50 and 75 g/kg dry matter (DM). The experimental design was a complete randomized design, with treatments arranged in a 4 × 7 factorial (tannin addition levels × days of ensiling). The loss of gas and the presence of moulds observed in the opening days had increased linearly. Fermentative characteristics were decreased by the addition of tannin. Acetic acid content showed a linear increase. Tannin levels had a quadratic effect on gas production at 28 days of ensiling. After 56 days, however, tannin levels had no significant effect on silage gas production. After 28 days of ensiling, the degradability of potentially degradable fraction ‘b’ demonstrated quadratic effect. The same occurred with the fractions ‘a’, ‘b’ which were undegradable after 56 days of ensiling. The addition of condensed tannin lengthened the fermentative stage and caused the silage to stabilize after 56 days of ensiling.

Bovine herpes virus 1 (BHV-1) manifests as a latent viral infection putatively affecting bovines. Understanding its effect on cattle herds is critical to maintaining sustainable beef and dairy production systems, as well as aiding in the development of herd health policies. The primary objective of the current study was, therefore, to use a whole-farm bio-economic model to evaluate the effect of herd seroprevalence to BHV-1 on the productive and economic performance of a spring calving beef cow herd. As part of a wider epidemiological study of herd pathogen status, a total of 4240 cows from 134 spring calving beef cow herds across the Republic of Ireland were blood sampled to measure the seroprevalence to BHV-1. Using data from a national breeding database, productive and reproductive performance indicators were used to parameterize a single year, static and deterministic whole-farm bio-economic model. A spring-calving, pasture-based suckler beef cow production system with an emphasis on calf-to-weanling production was simulated. The impact of BHV-1 seropositivity on whole-farm technical and economic performance was relatively small, with a marginal drop in the net margin of 4% relative to a baseline seronegative herd. Subsequent risk factors for increased pathogenicity were considered such as total herd size, percentage of intra-herd movements and vaccination status for BHV-1. In contrast to all others, scenarios representing herds that were either small in size or those which indicated an active vaccination policy for BHV-1 had no reduction in net margin against the baseline as a result of seropositivity to BHV-1.

The use of cactus cladodes in animal feed is well-established in semi-arid areas. The cactus Nopalea cochenillifera (L.) Salm-Dyck cladodes (Nopalea) have high acceptability amongst dairy cows and are resistant to carmine cochineal insects (Dactylopius opuntiae Cockerell), a problem in semi-arid regions, but in regions of prolonged drought, it has lower productivity compared with the cactus Opuntia stricta (Haw.) Haw cladodes (Opuntia), which is also resistant to the insect. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the intake and content of digestible material of dry matter (DM) and its components, feeding behaviour, microbial protein synthesis, nitrogen balance, blood parameters, performance and milk composition of Holstein cows fed a control diet, containing either Nopalea or Opuntia associated with different concentrate levels (225, 275, 325 and 375 g/kg). Ten cows with an initial average milk production of 20 ± 2.1 kg/day were distributed into a double 5 × 5 Latin square design. Diets containing 775 g roughage/kg and 225 g concentrate/kg promoted similar responses to the analysed variables regardless of the cactus cladode used, except for digestibility of neutral detergent fibre. Diets containing higher proportions of concentrate (325 and 375 g/kg) promoted greater DM intake and 3.5% fat-corrected milk yield. The diet containing Opuntia at 775:225 g/kg roughage:concentrate proportion is as effective as the control diet for Holstein cows producing 20 kg of milk/day. To promote greater milk production, higher proportions of concentrate should be added to diets using Opuntia.

Irrigation according to reliable estimates of crop water requirements (CWR) is one of the key strategies to ensure long-term sustainability of irrigated agriculture. In southern Mediterranean regions, during the irrigation season, CWR is almost totally controlled by the potential evapotranspiration of the irrigated crop. An innovative system for forecasting crop potential evapotranspiration (ETp) has been implemented recently in the Campania region (southern Italy). The system produces ETp forecasts with a lead time of up to 5 days, by coupling the visible and near-infrared crop imagery with numerical weather prediction outputs of a limited area model. The forecasts are delivered to farmers with a simple and intuitive web app interface, which makes daily real-time ETp maps accessible from desktop computers, tablets and smartphones. Forecast performances were evaluated for maize fields of two farms in two irrigation seasons (2014–2015). The mean absolute bias of the forecasted ETp was <0.3 mm/day and the RMSE was <0.6 mm/day, both for lead times up to 5 days.

Timely crop information, i.e. well before harvesting time and at first stages of crop development, can benefit farmers and producer organizations. The current case study documents the procedure to deliver early data on planted tomato to users, showing the potential of Sentinel 2 (S2) to map tomato at the very beginning of the crop season, which is a challenging task. Using satellite data, integrated with ground and aerial data, an initial estimate of area planted with tomato and early tomato maps were generated in seven main production areas in Italy. Estimates of the amount of area planted with tomato provided similar results either when derived from field surveys or from remote-sensing-based classification. Tomato early maps showed a producer accuracy >80% in seven cases out of nine, and a user accuracy >80% in five cases out of nine, with differences attributed to the varying agricultural characteristics and environmental heterogeneity of the study areas. The additional use of aerial data improved producer accuracy moderately. The ability to identify abrupt growth changes, such as those caused by natural hazards, was also analysed: S2 detected significant changes in tomato growth between a hailstorm-affected area and a control area. The study suggests that S2, with enhanced spectral capabilities and open data policy, represents very valuable data, allowing crop monitoring at an early development stage.

Whole-crop maize forage was ensiled without inoculant (control), inoculated with Lactobacillus buchneri and L. plantarum at a rate of 1 × 105 cfu/g fresh forage per bacterium (LBLP), or inoculated with Bacillus subtilis and L. plantarum at a rate 1 × 105 cfu/g fresh forage per bacterium (BSLP) with the goal to investigate the growth performance of finishing feedlot lambs. Thirty Dorper × Santa Ines lambs (29 ± 3.5 kg initial body weight) were used in the feedlot programme and assigned (n = 10) to one of three diets containing control, LBLP or BSLP silages in a 60:40 forage:concentrate ratio. Inoculation of maize silage did not alter dry matter intake (overall mean = 1.16 kg/day) and average daily gain (overall mean = 0.217 kg/day) of lambs. Consequently, feed efficiency remained unchanged. Inoculation of maize silage did not alter carcass and meat traits of lambs, with the exception of meat colour, wherein yellowness (b*) decreased by feeding LBLP and BSLP diets compared with the untreated diet. Regarding ruminal fermentation, there was an interaction between diets and the interval at which ruminal fluid was sampled for determining total volatile fatty acid concentration, but inoculation yielded no obvious results. In conclusion, the use of diets based on maize silage inoculated with L. plantarum combined with either L. buchneri or B. subtilis did not display relevant effects on growth performance of lambs; this response might be related to the limited impact of these bacterial inoculants on silage composition.

The use of forage legumes has been proposed as a means of generating sustainable grazing environments. Their limited use, particularly in tropical pastures, is partially due to the limited knowledge regarding the efficiency of utilization by animals. The present study characterized the sward structure, nutritive value and ingestive behaviour of dairy heifers in pastures of peanut cv. Belmonte under continuous stocking management. Treatments corresponded to sward heights of 5, 10, 15 and 20 cm, according to a randomized complete block design, with four replications. The following response variables were evaluated: vertical distribution of the morphological components within the sward, forage mass, nutritive value (simulated grazing), bite rate (BR), bite mass (BM) and short-term herbage intake rate (STIR). The top half of the sward height was mainly composed of leaves and the bottom half mainly of stolon and dead material regardless of management height. Greater values of neutral detergent fibre and acid detergent fibre were recorded during autumn, while higher values of in-vitro dry matter (DM) digestibility (0·85) occurred during spring regardless of management height for the grazed stratum. In relation to treatments, greater values of crude protein were recorded on swards managed at 5 cm (0·27) and 10 cm (0·26). Bite rate, BM and STIR varied with sward height, but not with a season of the year. The STIR followed a broken line response to sward height, with increasing values up to 13·1 cm (106 g DM/kg body weight). Sward structure played an important role in determining the STIR. To maximize the STIR of dairy heifers under continuous stocking management, swards should be managed at heights of not <13·1 cm.

Two experiments were carried out to investigate how milking in mid-line (ML) affects the lipolysis level and milk composition in goat livestock, in comparison with low-line (LL) milking. The first experiment took place, in triplicate, on an experimental farm. For each replicate, a crossover design (62 goats, two treatments, ML and LL, in two periods each lasting 4 days) was used. Milk samples were taken daily at 0 and 24 h after milking. In the first experimental replicate, some enzymatic coagulation cheeses were made, which were assessed by a panel of tasters at 50 and 100 days of maturation. In the second experiment, the lipolysis level and composition of tank milk from 55 commercial dairy goat farms (25 ML and 30 LL) were analysed, in milk samples taken in three different weeks. The results of the first experiment showed that ML milking increased free fatty acid (FFA) concentration in raw goat's milk significantly (0.71 v. 0.40 mmol/l, respectively). However, in the milk samples taken from commercial farms the FFA concentration remained unaffected by the milking pipeline height (0.59 v. 0.58 mmol/l for ML and LL, respectively). No significant differences were found in the milk composition, nor in the sensory characteristics in the cured cheeses, which suggests that factors other than the milkline height are able to influence the level of lipolysis under commercial conditions. Therefore, ML milking should not be discouraged, provided that the correct functioning and management of the milking operation and milk storage on the farm is guaranteed.

Hailed as the single most important paper published on crop protection in the 20th century, Stern et al. in 1959 formed the conceptual basis for modern integrated pest management (IPM) worldwide. The ecological foundation for IPM envisioned by its authors is as valid today as in 1959. However, adoption by developing country farmers has been low and its advances short-lived. The present paper examines the concept of integration in IPM and criteria for determining whether its control tactics have been integrated harmoniously. The effects of local and regional landscape patterns on pests and on the design of IPM are reviewed, arguing that the agroecosystem must be understood and managed as a living system with the goal of enhancing and conserving agrobiodiversity and keeping ecosystem services intact. Key to IPM adoption is convincing farmers to integrate non-chemical alternatives (e.g. biological control, plant diversification) as primary management components and to apply pesticides judiciously and only after non-chemical components fail to manage pests effectively. Research, extension and policy changes are identified to increase the efficiency, adoption and sustainability of IPM on resource-limited farms. The over-arching challenge is devising communication and support systems that allow resource-limited farmers to try, adopt and sustain IPM that enhances yields and profits in light of the many uncertainties and challenges. Use of information technology, media development, crowdsourcing and rural sociology is advocated to connect farmers to the technical sources required to enhance yields and profits and reduce risks to them, the farming community and the environment.

The aim of the current study was to estimate additive and dominance genetic variance components for days from calving to first service (DFS), a number of services to conception (NSC) and days open (DO). Data consisted of 25 518 fertility records from first parity dairy cows collected from 15 large Holstein herds of Iran. To estimate the variance components, two models, one including only additive genetic effects and another fitting both additive and dominance genetic effects together, were used. The additive and dominance relationship matrices were constructed using pedigree data. The estimated heritability for DFS, NSC and DO were 0.068, 0.035 and 0.067, respectively. The differences between estimated heritability using the additive genetic and additive-dominance genetic models were negligible regardless of the trait under study. The estimated dominance variance was larger than the estimated additive genetic variance. The ratio of dominance variance to phenotypic variance was 0.260, 0.231 and 0.196 for DFS, NSC and DO, respectively. Akaike's information criteria indicated that the model fitting both additive and dominance genetic effects is the best model for analysing DFS, NSC and DO. Spearman's rank correlations between the predicted breeding values (BV) from additive and additive-dominance models were high (0.99). Therefore, ranking of the animals based on predicted BVs was the same in both models. The results of the current study confirmed the importance of taking dominance variance into account in the genetic evaluation of dairy cows.

The present study evaluated the effects of isovalerate supplementation on the development of the small intestinal mucosa in dairy calves. Forty-eight Chinese Holstein bull calves at 15 days of age and 45.1 ± 0.36 kg of body weight were assigned randomly to four groups. The treatments were control, low-isovalerate, moderate-isovalerate and high-isovalerate with 0, 3, 6 and 9 g isovalerate per calf per day, respectively. The study comprised 75 days with a 15-day adaptation period followed by a 60-day sampling period. Calves were weaned at 60 days of age. Six calves were chosen from each treatment at random and slaughtered at 30 and 90 days of age. The small intestine morphology and activities of amylase and trypsin improved significantly with increasing age. No interaction between treatments and age was observed. The small intestine length, mucosa layer thickness, villus height and crypt depth increased linearly with increasing isovalerate supplementation. However, the ratio of villus height to crypt depth was not affected by treatment. Activities of amylase and trypsin increased linearly. The lactase activity increased linearly during the 75-day period and for pre-weaned calves but was unaltered for post-weaned calves. The relative mRNA expressions of growth hormone receptor, insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor and sodium-glucose co-transporter-1 in the small intestine mucosa increased linearly, and a similar pattern was observed for the expression of peptide transporter-1 in the duodenum and proximal jejunum. The results suggested that small intestine development was promoted by isovalerate in a dose-dependent manner.

In the current study, for the main crops cultivated in the Campania region (South of Italy), three indicators were proposed and analysed. The blue water footprint (WFb), which gives an indication of the impact of irrigation on the water resource; the gross margin WFb (GMWFb), describing the economic productivity of irrigation; and the job WFb (JWFb) that expresses the social value of blue water in terms of job opportunities. Results confirmed that water applied through irrigation is much higher compared with crop requirements. In terms of GMWFb, silage maize, maize and alfalfa had the highest values, while olive, potato and tomato had the lowest. Concerning JWFb, silage maize was the crop with the highest value. Even though a deeper analysis should be done in terms of added value in the entire supply chain, the results indicated a clear difference between the crops related to animal feeding (alfalfa, maize) and the other crops taken into consideration. In fact, for the former, both the GMWFb and the JWFb achieved their highest values. Results showed that for certain irrigation volumes and for certain crops, the economic and social impacts are very different and the choice of an irrigated crop rather than another has different repercussions in terms of environmental and socio-economic sustainability. The proposed indicators would allow water managers and farmers to assess and compare production systems in terms of the different benefits that their use of water can provide.