Agrilife Research Field Day to Cover New Tech in Cattle Systems Nov. 2 in Beeville

Oct 23, 2023

By Ashley Patterson

The Texas A&M AgriLife Research Station at Beeville will host a field day Nov. 2 featuring a broad overview of new technology used in beef cattle production systems.

The research station is located at 3507 Highway 59 E, Beeville.

Attendees will learn about grazing systems establishment; a progress report on the performance of five breeds of cattle in the South Texas climate; use of digital agriculture and remote sensing technology in livestock and pasture management; and the link between grazing systems, cattle genetics management and digital agriculture, data science and artificial intelligence.

The free field day will begin with registration at 9 a.m. and conclude at 1:30 p.m. A welcome and agency update from G. Cliff Lamb, AgriLife Research director, will start at 9:30 a.m.

Presentations from AgriLife Research faculty in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and Department of Animal Science will follow. Lunch will be served courtesy of Texas Farm Credit.

Field day extension of station research

The station serves important research and technology development, and this field day puts into action a strategic plan to grow outreach, said Juan Landivar, Ph.D., professor and center director for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and Research Center at Corpus Christi.

“In 2022, the research station in Beeville implemented a new five-year strategic plan that focuses on developing and sharing research-based livestock management strategies adapted to South Texas,” Landivar said. “This field day represents the kick-off of our new strategic plan, aimed at enhancing communications with local land managers.”

Current research at Beeville aims to promote the stewardship of natural resources, resulting in long-term economic and environmental resilience of animal protein production for stakeholders within South Texas and grasslands of similar climates.

On the agenda

Presentations and speakers for the field day are:

Welcome and AgriLife Research Update: Lamb.
Forage: A Keystone in Agriculture Systems: Jamie Foster, Ph.D., AgriLife Research forage agronomist and Department of Soil and Crop Sciences professor.
Genetics of Cow-Herd Sustainability: Milt Thomas, Ph.D., AgriLife Research livestock geneticist and Department of Animal Science professor.
Digital Agriculture: Mahendra Bhandari, Ph.D., AgriLife Research remote sensing crop physiologist and Department of Soil and Crop Sciences assistant professor
Closing Remarks: Landivar.

Source : tamu.edu

Video: US Soy: Pig growth is impaired by soybean meal displacement in the diet

Eric van Heugten, PhD, professor and swine extension specialist at North Carolina State University, recently spoke at the Iowa Swine Day Pre-Conference Symposium, titled Soybean Meal 360°: Expanding our horizons through discoveries and field-proven feeding strategies for improving pork production. The event was sponsored by Iowa State University and U.S. Soy.

Soybean meal offers pig producers a high-value proposition. It’s a high-quality protein source, providing essential and non-essential amino acids to the pig that are highly digestible and palatable. Studies now show that soybean meal provides higher net energy than current National Research Council (NRC) requirements. Plus, soybean meal offers health benefits such as isoflavones and antioxidants as well as benefits with respiratory diseases such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

One of several ingredients that compete with the inclusion of soybean meal in pig diets is dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS).

“With DDGS, we typically see more variable responses because of the quality differences depending on which plant it comes from,” said Dr. van Heugten. “At very high levels, we often see a reduction in performance especially with feed intake which can have negative consequences on pig performance, especially in the summer months when feed intake is already low and gaining weight is at a premium to get them to market.”

Over the last few decades, the industry has also seen the increased inclusion of crystalline amino acids in pig diets.

“We started with lysine at about 3 lbs. per ton in the diet, and then we added methionine and threonine to go to 6 to 8 lbs. per ton,” he said. “Now we have tryptophan, isoleucine and valine and can go to 12 to 15 lbs. per ton. All of these, when price competitive, are formulated into the diet and are displacing soybean meal which also removes the potential health benefits that soybean meal provides.”