Description

This study evaluated the effect of contrasting ‘finishing’ diets on animal performance, meat nutritional value, land use, food-feed competition, farm economics and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in temperate pasture-based suckler weanling-to-steer beef systems. Post-weaning, eight-month-old, spring-born, late-maturing breed steers (333 kg) were assigned to one of three systems: (1) Grass silage + 1.2 kg concentrate DM (148 days), followed by pasture (123 days) and finished on ad libitum concentrates (120 days) - slaughter age, 21 months (GRAIN); (2) as per (1) but pasture (196 days) and finished on grass silage ad libitum + 3.5 kg concentrate DM (124 days) - slaughter age, 24 months (SIL+GRAIN); and (3) grass silage-only (148 days), pasture (196 days), silage-only (140 days) and finished on pasture (97 days) - slaughter age, 28 months (FORAGE). The mean target carcass weight was 390 kg for each system. Data generated was used to parameterise a farm-level beef systems model. Measured concentrate DM intake was 1187, 606 and 0 kg/head, and average daily gain was 0.83, 0.72 and 0.62 kg for GRAIN, SIL+GRAIN and FORAGE, respectively. Direct (pasture) land use was lowest for GRAIN. FORAGE was more profitable and was the only net producer of human edible protein and energy/ha. GRAIN produced the lowest GHG emissions per animal and meat essential amino acid concentration. FORAGE was more favourable for GHG emissions per kg of net (produced vs. consumed) production of human edible protein. Muscle amino acid and saturated fatty acid concentrations did not differ between the production systems, but FORAGE had the highest muscle concentration of omega-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids. Differences in muscle mineral concentration were small. In conclusion, there are inverse relationships between food-feed competition, land-use, economics and GHG emissions per unit of product among different systems.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.13023/1vew-rt52

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A Multicriteria Assessment of Forage or Concentrate-Based Finishing Diets for Temperate Pasture-Based Suckler Beef Production Systems

This study evaluated the effect of contrasting ‘finishing’ diets on animal performance, meat nutritional value, land use, food-feed competition, farm economics and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in temperate pasture-based suckler weanling-to-steer beef systems. Post-weaning, eight-month-old, spring-born, late-maturing breed steers (333 kg) were assigned to one of three systems: (1) Grass silage + 1.2 kg concentrate DM (148 days), followed by pasture (123 days) and finished on ad libitum concentrates (120 days) - slaughter age, 21 months (GRAIN); (2) as per (1) but pasture (196 days) and finished on grass silage ad libitum + 3.5 kg concentrate DM (124 days) - slaughter age, 24 months (SIL+GRAIN); and (3) grass silage-only (148 days), pasture (196 days), silage-only (140 days) and finished on pasture (97 days) - slaughter age, 28 months (FORAGE). The mean target carcass weight was 390 kg for each system. Data generated was used to parameterise a farm-level beef systems model. Measured concentrate DM intake was 1187, 606 and 0 kg/head, and average daily gain was 0.83, 0.72 and 0.62 kg for GRAIN, SIL+GRAIN and FORAGE, respectively. Direct (pasture) land use was lowest for GRAIN. FORAGE was more profitable and was the only net producer of human edible protein and energy/ha. GRAIN produced the lowest GHG emissions per animal and meat essential amino acid concentration. FORAGE was more favourable for GHG emissions per kg of net (produced vs. consumed) production of human edible protein. Muscle amino acid and saturated fatty acid concentrations did not differ between the production systems, but FORAGE had the highest muscle concentration of omega-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids. Differences in muscle mineral concentration were small. In conclusion, there are inverse relationships between food-feed competition, land-use, economics and GHG emissions per unit of product among different systems.