EuroDairy – Resource efficiency webinars

This page covers EuroDairy webinars delivered on the broad topic of resource efficiency. The focus has been on new inventions, methods and management practices implementable by farmers. 

Compact TMR is a mixing and feeding concept that targets the nutrition and behaviour of dairy cows to simultaneously benefit productivity, efficiency and health.

With Compact TMR all cows in a feeding group shall have unlimited access to a feed mix that cannot be sorted.

Niels Bastian Kristensen (SEGES Livestock Innovation, Denmark) introduces the Compact TMR concept, including feed bunk management, evaluation of cow behaviour, mixing process, and adjustments of feed mixers.

Introducing the tool used to collect resource efficiency data from the EuroDairy pilot farms.

This webinar focuses on how to use whole crop silage as part of dairy cows' diets.

During ensiling and feed-out there is a loss of nutrients from the crop. The losses, which can be very high, are related to the dry-matter content of the crop, the type of crop being ensiled and the storage system used.

The amount of bad silage farmers manually discard is usually fairly small, but the invisible losses where the dry matter disappears as CO^₂ and heat can exceed 15% in bunker silos. With good management and techniques, the losses can be below 5%.

Rolf Spöndly talks about dry matter losses during silage making, what the losses depend on, and techniques that reduce dry matter loss. Then Elisabet Nadeau talks about the biological factors that affect losses from different crops and how to reduce losses by using additives.

Rapeseed cake is a by-product of biofuel production from rapeseed. The Life Seed Capital project looked at using rapeseed cake in dairy cows' diets to reduce feed costs and carbon footprint.

The project focused on how 100% of the rapeseed can be used on a farm in diets and as biofuel for farm machinery.

Dr Aser Garcia discusses how formulating 20% of cold-pressed rapeseed cake for dairy cows lowers production costs, obtains a healthier profile of fatty acids in milk and reduces enteric emissions by 8% without negatively affecting milk yield or quality.

The recent intensification in European dairy production has raised environmental and sustainability questions about the current housed systems.

Pasture is seen as the cheapest forage; however, its role in continental milk production is declining rapidly. The 'Eco-efficient pasture-based milk production' project at Kiel University’s research farm Lindhof in Northern Germany looked at reintroducing grazing.

This project looked at a pasture-based milk production system for 80 spring-calving Jerseys as an alternative to the traditional Holstein Friesian herd managed in a housed system. The results demonstrated that a rotational grazing system based on a spring-calving herd can sustainably produce milk in Germany.

In this webinar, Jasper Overgard Leham focuses on managing dairy cows for extended lactation and if this is a viable management strategy for farmers.

Ralf Loges compares a wide range of secondary legumes and forage herbs for forage production in Northwest Europe with respect to productivity, forage value and competitiveness.

Ralf describes how they determined which selection of species to include.

In this webinar, we look at how to quantify and manage nutrient balances on European dairy farms to optimise farm management, minimise nutrient losses and meet regulations.

Dairy farming is characterised by the cycling of nutrients and carbon. A more efficient use of resources (feed and fertilisers) reduces costs and the release of emissions to the environment. Management has been shown to be the most important factor for improving efficiency.

The first step in improving nutrient cycling is knowing your current farm performance. The dairy sector in the Netherlands has been learning to cope with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, which ultimately impact the size of the national dairy herd.

During this webinar, Catherine Brocas discusses the key results from the 4,000 dairy farms followed in the Life Carbon Dairy project.

She describes the main practices contributing to reducing the carbon footprint of milk and also how it improves the recourse and economic efficiency of dairy farming.

Arla is focusing on climate and sustainability. During this webinar, it is discussed how they are measuring the carbon footprint on farms and what the farmers have gained from having their carbon footprint quantified.

Listen back to this EuroDairy webinar to learn about the principles of crossbreeding and how Martin Madsen has been putting these principles into practice with his own herd.

During the webinar, the outcomes of changing from a pure breed strategy to a crossbreeding strategy are also discussed.

In the Dutch project 'Cows and opportunities', 16 dairy farmers together with researchers from Wageningen University & Research and several private extension services are looking for practical solutions to meet environmental and societal challenges.

After the abolition of the milk quota, the importance of improving nutrient efficiency to meet environmental limitations has only increased.

This webinar discusses the way this project became a successful formula and how dairy farmers, the Government and the dairy sector benefit from this project.

This project delivers tools and practical techniques to improve nutrient efficiency at farm level which is of benefit for all dairy farmers.

In this webinar, Thomas Andersen discusses the new Danish tool used to transfer data between the Danish herd management system (DMS) and mixer wagons.

With the tool, the application on the mixer wagon has direct access to the rations formulated in the DMS. This also collects data on the feed going in and out of the mixing wagon, which is also uploaded to DMS for record keeping.

The data are used to calculate useful KPIs on the efficiency and economics of their feeding practices. Data collected during feeding-out can be used to make the next feed mix precise. 

Increased volatility in prices and availability of soya and other protein sources has increased the importance of providing more protein from home-grown forages in diets of dairy cows.

In this webinar, Elisabet Nadeau discusses the role of forages as a protein source in dairy systems. 

In this webinar, Dutch dairy farmer Rudie Freriks shares his knowledge and experiences in reducing ammonia emissions of his 37.4 ha farm.

He discusses how various management measures helped him reduce emissions and their economic impact. 

A survey in France highlighted that it cannot be excluded that watering systems on farms are limiting milk production on certain farms.

Listen back to this webinar with Anne to learn more about how to ensure a sufficient water supply is available for your herd.

In this webinar, Dorien Van Wesemael discusses the results from the SMART Melken project. The project focused on methane mitigation and the carbon footprint of the feed strategies.

She talks abouts the use of feed additives, feed components and basic drivers within a diet (e.g. use of by-products, main forage type) towards an economic and environmentally sustainable dairy farm.

Within the EuroDairy Network, 113 of the innovative pilot farmers measured their resource efficiency for 2016 and 2017.

The data collected provides a unique overview of how efficiently dairy farmers across Europe are managing their on-farm resources. 

In this webinar, we explore the growing interest in the role of zero-grazing (cut and carry) systems and its potential to reduce feed and forage costs.

Debbie McConnell offers best practice tips to running a successful zero-grazing system. 

An English delegation of farmers and experts visited the Netherlands on 15–16 August 2018 to exchange knowledge about low ammonia emissions in dairy cow housing. 

Grass production is the backbone of Finnish dairy production. This video presents a researcher’s and farmer’s interview of production of grass, whole crop silage and maize silage in Finland.

This video was produced in the EuroMaito project, a EuroDairy operational group. 

This project has received funding from the European Union`s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 696364.