Rapid methods of analysis of silages to improve feeding management in dairy farms

In modern dairy farms, optimization of feeding is critical to maintain animal health, lower impact and maximise profitability. However, large feed and forage variability reduce consistency of composition of diet delivered to dairy cows. A feeding management plan must implement a program of feed sampling and analysis (St-Pierre and Cobanov, 2007), that ensure small variation of nutrients in diets. Traditional reference wet chemistry methods are accurate, but expensive, they can be implemented at specialized labs with relative long time of response. As an alternative to the traditional methods, near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) has received an increasing attention, with a large use in many commercial and private labs. Proficiency programs (like the National Forage Testing Association) have proven that NIR can be accurate in respect to reference method in the quantification of organic feed nutrients. The paper will highlight the advantages of the use of NIR in feeding program in term of precision feeding and animal performance. It will also evaluate the challenges of on-site analysis for dairy farm as well as for biogas plants. The paper will also briefly cover the alternative methods for the determination of mineral nutrients with rapid and non-destructive methods, like x-ray fluorescence (XRF).