01 September 2022 – Beef and dairy producers are being faced with ever increasing environmental and commercial pressures to increase performance, harvest more energy, while reducing emissions. However, for many producers and nutritionists it is a challenge to know how to maintain performance and profitability whilst reducing overall inputs, especially with variable forage qualities and inflating cereal prices.
Looking to help ruminant producers meet their individual goals, AB Vista is putting forward its portfolio of ruminant additives and technical services which it says can help farmers unlock more operational savings and reduce their carbon footprint.
To take us through the company’s findings, Feedinfo recently spoke to AB Vista Managing Director, Juan Ignacio Fernández, who shared with us the science behind pre-treatment product, VistaPre-T and how it can lead to lower costs and emissions for producers. He also talked us through how complementary AB Vista tools, like its Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR) and Emissions Reporting Service, could further support its customers at a time of increasing market pressure to produce more from less.
[Feedinfo] Let’s kick off with how big a contributor feed is to the emissions in ruminant production. Please give us a bit of an overview.
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[Juan Ignacio Fernández] More than 40% of emissions associated with ruminant production comes from the feed. Therefore, changes to feed formulation can have a large impact on carbon footprint at farm gate. Put simply, carbon footprint is a balance of inputs vs output; to reduce your carbon footprint, you can increase outputs or decrease inputs. By using a pre-treatment product such as VistaPre-T, customers can get more digestible energy from their ration and as such reduce reliance on other costly cereals and ingredients and imported feed materials. This has the double benefit of reducing both emissions and costs. |
Juan Ignacio FernándezLive yeast is another option for producers; it lowers the concentration of oxygen in the rumen, stimulating fibre fermentation by creating an environment that favours fibre-digesting organisms, potentially reducing challenges such as sub-acute ruminal acidosis that affect animal performance and health.
[Feedinfo] So what exactly is VistaPre-T? How does it go about extracting more energy from homegrown forages?
[Juan Ignacio Fernández] VistaPre-T is a fermentation extract from Trichoderma reesei, a revolutionary feed technology that directly impacts fibre utilization. It is the first of its kind to enter the ruminant market.
It is applied directly onto the total mixed ration (TMR). Pits are quickly formed on the fibre surface, roughening up the feed material. This leads to faster attachment and colonisation of fibre-degrading microbes in the rumen.
When applied accurately to the diet, using insights taken from our NIR and Emissions Reporting Service, the pre-treatment has the ability to lower both costs and emissions at the same time.
VistaPre-T has shown an increase of 0.70 MJ/kg (approximately 170 Cal/kg) in Metabolizable Energy (ME) when applied directly to maize silage in vitro. This results in a significant increase in production when applied directly to TMR.
To give you an example, as part of a commercial evaluation involving more than 7,000 cows in three dairies in the United States, rations treated with VistaPre-T led to improved milk yield in dairy cows by 0.70 kg/d, energy-corrected milk by 0.80 kg/d, milk fat by 0.04 kg/d, and 0.01 kg/d in milk protein, compared to TMR without VistaPre-T.
Furthermore, a dairy in California working with replacement heifers observed a 14% improvement in feed use efficiency using VistaPre-T, as well as a reduction in feed to grain ratio in a dry matter basis from 4.8 to 4.1, in heifers receiving rations treated with VistaPre-T.
The cost and emission savings offered by VistaPre-T will depend on the different markets. But taking the UK dairy industry as an example, we have seen a cost saving of £0.12/head/day, when considering the cost of the product and other feedstuffs which were removed from the ration. In addition, thanks to the uplift in performance, the additional milk yield equated to an extra £0.81/head/day (based on 29ppl). In the trial, the producer made an additional £93 per 100 cows/day using VistaPre-T. These savings become even more important in the current climate, with the steep increase in ingredient costs.
Alongside the financial benefits of using VistaPre-T, using AB Vista’s Emissions Reporting Service the reduction in carbon equivalents was also assessed for two 44-day periods. The changes in milk production and reduction in concentrate provision resulted in a 15% reduction in CO2e/L of milk produced - a significant saving.
[Feedinfo] As you just mentioned, VistaPre-T can be applied on top of the diet. But it can also be formulated into the total ration. How should customers go about deciding between these application methods?
[Juan Ignacio Fernández] In an increasingly volatile market, farmers and nutritionists often have to decide between cost savings and performance enhancements.
The flexibility of the VistaPre-T application allows producers to meet their individual goals. Adding VistaPre-T on top of the ration will increase the energy in the diet, which can result in performance benefits and improvements to the CO2 equivalent per kg of product. In other words, it targets the reduction of the environmental impact by increasing the output.
Formulating the ration using the VistaPre-T energy value can help maintain current performance levels whilst reducing cost and emissions. In this second strategy, the focus is on reducing the inputs. To apply this concept of cost and carbon emissions reductions, understanding the total ration performance is key, and this is where the NIR and Emissions Reporting Service should be applied.
[Feedinfo] So let’s talk a bit more about these services. The use of data in ration decision making is increasingly utilised. What exactly are the insights that ruminant producers can expect from your NIR and Emissions Reporting Service?
[Juan Ignacio Fernández] We offer a range of technical services to support decision making when developing the diet. NIR can be used to analyze the forage and ingredient composition; our portable NIR devices allow farmers and nutritionists to evaluate forage quality, characterize dietary nutrient composition, and further optimize ration formulation in real time. The NIR can also be used to monitor the quality of the TMR by assessing its mixability and compare it with the expected ration formulation, giving farmers total control of both the quality of the ingredients used in the formulation and the process to transform those numbers in actual ration that is provided to the animals.
In addition to our NIR services facilitating producers’ decision-making processes with real-time insights, we also support our customers with the quantification of the carbon footprint of their outputs at farm gate. We work with customers to simulate formulations with different ingredient types or origin before making any changes to the diet, to calculate the effects on kgCO2e/t feed. As well as measuring the carbon footprint, these measurements also allow producers to look at their farming system from a different perspective and identify strategic decisions that improve productivity as well as reducing the environmental impact.
[Feedinfo] Axcelera C and Optipartum C+ are new additions to your ruminant portfolio – which already included VistaPre-T and live yeast Vistacell. There was also a recent agreement with Avivagen to distribute the carotene polymer OxyC-Beta in key markets, like Brazil, Thailand and the United States. What does all of this mean for AB Vista’s ruminant portfolio? What can we expect to see in the future?
[Juan Ignacio Fernández] The addition of Axcelera C and Optipartum C+ is an exciting development for AB Vista and demonstrates our increasing focus on the global ruminant feed additives business.
Optipartum C+ improves cow performance from the critical postpartum period and beyond, by improving the digestibility of the ration, while Axcelera C accelerates calf growth and performance.
We have had significant success selling these feed additives in the American market over the past few years. The new arrangements provide us with new opportunities to further grow in this sector and expand sales of related ruminant products.
Looking ahead, we plan to further support ruminant producers by providing a wider range of sustainable and profitable feeding solutions, expanding our portfolio of products and services and bringing new technologies to this area.
For example, we are further expanding our NIR service, rolling out in key markets the ability to scan manure samples and evaluate the digestibility of key nutrients and the moisture content of the manure. This will give those involved in ruminant production – nutritionists, veterinarians, consultants, farmers, etc. – further key insights into the nutritional and health aspects of the animals, and how to farm the biome of the animals to improve profit and produce more from less.
Published in association with AB Vista
