Once again the Four-State Dairy Nutrition and Management Conference is set to take place in early June. It will be held June 8-9 at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa. This conference, a collaboration of Extension professionals from Iowa State University, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, and University of Wisconsin, was developed to provide timely research information for dairy industry professionals.
Researchers from across the country and Canada will come to the Midwest to speak on the role of the immune system in dairy health, reaching for 35,000-pound herd averages, and managing the environment. A large variety of topics will be covered in just two days.
Two general session speakers provide a glimpse of the conference’s content with their following remarks.
Pat Hoffman
University of Wisconsin
Session topic: Evaluating & Improving Starch Digestibility for Lactating Dairy Cows
Q. Why is this topic important?
With increased corn use demands, feeding corn to dairy cattle has become a major feed expense. As a result, dairy nutritionists and dairy producers continue to explore ways to optimize grain and starch utilization in dairy cattle diets. To optimize grain and starch utilization, comprehensive feed grain evaluation systems are required but to date have been lacking. The presentation combines key historic and current research efforts to develop improved feed grain evaluation systems to aid dairy nutrition consultants and dairy producers in optimizing utilization of feed grains for lactating dairy cows.
Q. What do you hope attendees will take away from this presentation?
Attendees of this presentation will increase their understanding of physical and chemical factors in corn that influence starch digestibility in lactating dairy cows.
Trevor DeVries
University of Guelph
Reducing Between-Cow Variation in Nutrient Intake through Feed Bunk Management
Q. Why is this topic important?
Much effort is put into designing rations for dairy cows, however, cows do not always eat that ration, in amount and composition, as formulated for them. This leads to variability within and between cows in nutrient consumption.
Q. What do you hope attendees will take away from this presentation?
Practical nutritional and housing management strategies that can be implemented on farm to promote good access for cows to the feed provided to them and consumption of that feed as it is formulated for them.
To register for the conference online or obtain a downloadable brochure, go to www.wasa.org or contact Wisconsin Agri-Service Association at (608) 223-1111. PD
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Karen Lee
- Midwest Editor
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