Guests: Dr. Bill Weiss, The Ohio State University Co-host: Dr. Clay Zimmerman and Dr. Glen Aines Diving into two recent Journal of Dairy Science publications, Dr. Bill Weiss, Emeritus Professor at Ohio State University is back again to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition.
Guests: Dr. Bill Weiss, The Ohio State University
Co-host: Dr. Clay Zimmerman and Dr. Glen Aines
Diving into two recent Journal of Dairy Science publications, Dr. Bill Weiss, Emeritus Professor at Ohio State University is back again to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition.
Dr. Weiss highlights two papers published in the Journal of Dairy Science earlier this year, adding one is focused on production while the other highlights fermentation digestibility. One key point Dr. Weiss highlighted was the controversial discussion around supplementing molasses or sugar. 3:02
Dr. Clay Zimmerman with Balchem also joined the evening discussion, adding that currently it is common to add a liquid sugar source for a certain level of sugar to optimize microbial protein synthesis. 6:02
Diving into the first paper, Dr. Weiss suggested the positive response to molasses would be affected by the RDP (Ratio Degradable Protein), adding he believes this was a valid hypothesis. He went on to highlight fiber differences, digestibility measures and the impact of inputting the data into the NRC (National Research Council) old database. 9:09
Analyzing a few key conclusions and surprises from the first production study, Dr. Weiss pointed out his thoughts on the milk efficiency components and intake digestibility results. 16:04
On the 10-week intake study, Dr. Zimmerman noted the results showed cows were on a two-week covariate diet and then eight weeks on the treatment diet, plus adding in high moisture corn as a grain source. Additionally, he added the only key parameter that wasn’t negatively affected by the increasing molasses was fat. 24:26
In fact, Dr. Glen Aines with Balchem, who also joined in on the conversation, was surprised the journal cited about 42% of VFA’s coming out of the molasses due to the belief it will produce less acidosis. 29:16
In the second paper, Dr. Weiss mentioned the results of no impact to RDP (Ratio Degradable Protein) from the models. Dr. Weiss added if he expects the diets to be deficient in RDP, he would also expect increased intake and digestibility. 31:16
No models are ever perfect, so analyzing the results from any study is essential.
Dr. Aines reflected on key takeaways from the second paper, highlighting the different fermentation battens between the various treatments and microbial population shifts. 49:54
Rounding out the conversation, Dr. Weiss closed suggesting the understanding that nothing works all the time and that’s why replicating experiments is so important. 53:41
If you want one of our new Real Science Exchange t-shirts, screenshot your rating, review, or subscription, and email a picture to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Include your size and mailing address, and we’ll get a shirt in the mail to you.
Please subscribe and share with your industry friends to bring more people to join us around the Real Science Exchange virtual pub table.
Links to Papers:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030222001874
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35346474/
Scott Sorrell (00:06):
Good evening everyone. And welcome to the real science exchange the podcast we're leading scientists and industry professionals. Meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell one of your hosts here tonight at the real science exchange tonight, we're back for another installment of the journal club modeled after the traditional journal clubs convened at universities across the country and even around the world, we'll take a closer look at some of the newest research published in the journal, dairy science. And this episode, we'll be reviewing two complimentary papers stemming from the recent USDA research study, Dr. Bill Weiss, our fearless leader here for this segment. Bill is an American professor from the Ohio state university. We recently celebrated our 50th real science exchange episode, and this is our fourth journal club bill. Welcome back to the real science exchange. And thank you for joining us here once again, tonight. Before we dive into the paper have anything interesting in your glass tonight?
Dr. Bill Weiss (01:09):
Well, I'm kind of fighting an illness, so I've got tap Cincinnati, tap water in my glass
Scott Sorrell (01:14):
Tonight. All right. Very well. We'll stay, stay, stay healthy there. Also joining us tonight at the pub are Dr. Clay Zimmerman and Dr. Glenn AINS, both are part of the technical service team here at Bache. So welcome to the exchange gentleman. And what are you guys enjoying for the conversation tonight?
Dr. Glen Aines (01:35):
Clay Scott?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (01:35):
I've changed it up a little bit. I've got, I've got some Irish coffee here.
Scott Sorrell (01:40):
All right. Nice. And Glen
Dr. Glen Aines (01:45):
Drinking a high five, which is a local IPA that comes out of Fort Myers, Florida over there. And it has to be an insulated mug because it's a little muggy here and
Scott Sorrell (01:59):
Beautiful
Dr. Glen Aines (01:59):
Florida today.
Scott Sorrell (02:01):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is interesting that you mentioned, I P I used to be, a total IPA drinker Glen until one night at your house there, in Hamburg, New Jersey. You introduced me to Templeton rye on the rocks. And I enjoyed that. And since then, I've kind of been a bit of, a bourbon rye enthusiast. So tonight I've got Templeton rye and well
Scott Sorrell (02:26):
Commemorating you for getting me started on this obsession. So thank you for that. I think my
Dr. Glen Aines (02:32):
Pleasure.
Scott Sorrell (02:33):
Yeah. Bill to get us started would you mind introducing the papers and telling us why you selected them?
Speaker 5 (02:39):
Tonight's podcast stories are brought to you by reassured precision release. Colleen reassure is the most researched, encapsulated Coline on the market today consistently delivering results to your transition cows of higher peak milk reduced metabolic disorders. And even in utero benefits to her calf, leading to growth and health improvements, visit bache.com to learn more.
Dr. Bill Weiss (03:02):
Okay, well, I'm not gonna read the full titles cuz they're pretty long, but they were published in the journal dairy science earlier this year. They're on sub the basic titles are substitution of cane molasses for corn grain. At two levels of degradable protein. It's a series of two papers. One is production papers or production responses. It's a long-term lactation study. The other one had the same basic treatments, but it was a Latin square short term and more room and fermentation digestibility measures there. The reason I pick this one is, that we do try to stick with papers that have some AP direct application, and feeding molasses obviously can be done today if they want. So, the other thing is when I was working at Ohio State as an extension, one question I got a lot is should I supplement sugar? Again, molasses is just basically it's synonymous in the industry for sugar. Should I feed supplement molasses or sugar? And if so, under what conditions, and there's been a lot of studies, not a lot, but a fair number of studies looking at different levels of molasses and, and this one, and as we'll talk about found some, some different results than what's typical. And that's another reason I picked it is to maybe explore why some of the results they report are quite different than what most people would think.
Scott Sorrell (04:36):
Yeah. Looking forward to the conversation I bill, as a reminder to our audience the links to the papers will be in our show notes bill. The other thing I noticed at least in the first paper, they were trying to see if what they found, in reality, matched what the models are, are represented. So I'm, I'm sure that'll be part of the discussion tonight as well. Any thoughts you wanna share on that?
Dr. Bill Weiss (04:59):
Yeah, this that's another big part one when it's, it's a little dated, unfortunately, cuz it is looking at the old NRC which we can discuss. I didn't have time to run this through the new NRC. I think it would be a little bit better. But I can't say, but they also looked at the CN P model, and again, it's important, you know, these models have value and all, but they are models and people need to remember that. And it's, it's useful to predict real responses. Me truly measured responses to model predicted just again, to maybe point out weaknesses of a model where, where more research is needed to improve 'em so
Scott Sorrell (05:43):
Yeah. Yeah. Very well. So gentlemen anybody on the panel has any idea whether or not molasses or sugars are being used extensively in the dairy industry today?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (05:56):
Yes, they are. I think, you know, particularly in, in, in larger, larger, Day, it's pretty, pretty common to add a liquid sugar source on farm. I think they add it, you know, for various reasons, you know, as a sugar source, it's also a way to, to add a little moisture to the TMR and, and, and help the TMR help reduce sorting in the TMR are, you know, some of the reasons why I think they're, they're added maybe some of the others wanna elaborate on that.
Dr. Glen Aines (06:32):
So I think there's a group of nutritionists out there that believe that you need a certain level of sugar to optimize, you know, microbial protein synthesis. And so I think there's that element of it.
Dr. Bill Weiss (06:47):
I, I don't have data, but I see a lot of diets, and two or 3% add-in molasses is not uncommon. I won't, it's not universal, but it's not uncommon. And you know, at Ohio State, we, we, for a long time, we did this pricing feeds using Sesame and, and it, it prices feeds based on nutrients. And molasses was always, probably for 20 years, always in the overpriced range or the overpriced list which means based on energy and protein, you would never feed it, but people do. So obviously they're feeding it for something other than just energy. It does. They, think it does something more than just, just provide an energy source.
Scott Sorrell (07:34):
I'd have to say that you know, a lot of the current research would indicate that that is true that you can get some increased milk production by feeding sugars in diets. So the bill, why don't you get us started by just kind of going over kind of the hypothesis and then a little bit about the methods used in these two studies? Okay, well, let's start with the first, the first paper.
Dr. Bill Weiss (07:56):
Okay. Well, their basic hypothesis was that the response, the positive response to molasses would be affected by RDP level and, and for a long time, it's, it's been promoted that to get maximum response to molasses you, the diets have to have adequate RDP and maybe even excess. So this was a valid hypothesis. They had 6, 2, 2 by three factorial, three levels of molasses, which were rounding things off here a little bit to make it simple, basically zero five and 10% added molasses, liquid molasses. And then the RDP treatments were just high and low. And I, I, I used their diets and punched 'em into the old NRC. And, I did have all their feed compositions. So these are approximate, but the low RDP diet was about 10 and a half. The high was about 11 and a half and they, they got the difference in RDP by taking out experts the, the low RDP diet had a hundred percent exp spellers the, the high RDP diet, they took about half the expeller to sew and put solvent.
Dr. Bill Weiss (09:09):
So again, and, and this is an important thing to remember. So what they did, they're, they're saying, and this is a problem with all nutrition studies. So they're saying RDP differed, but you have to remember R U P differed just as much. So as one goes up, the other one that went down. So whether this is a combination of that effect or, or not, we don't know. And the substitution as molasses went up, they, they, the hypothesis was that they're substituting basically for corn grain, with a few adjustments for a little bit of the protein difference. And some fiber differences starch was moderate at about, at the control diet about 27 starch went down as molasses went up, but the sum of sugars plus starch was about the same in all diets, crude proteins, the same in all diets fed it mid lactation Holsteins 60 of them, but they've lost one cow only 59, and they fed it for 10 weeks. So this is a really good long-term study 10 CALS per treatment, which again, is adequate power. So the design was, was quite good, measured standard production measurements did digestibility using markers might be a little limited on the number of fecal samples, but a marker on, on digestibility. And then like, as you mentioned earlier, they plugged all this data into the old NRC. And, and I didn't write down which CN CPS version, maybe what you guys did. It,
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (10:48):
It was 6.55. Okay. Which is the current version commercially
Dr. Bill Weiss (10:53):
And then looked at predicted responses. Mel predicted energy corrected, milk yield RUP balance, RDP balance, et cetera. In the second study, the same treatments, same hypothesis, and different cows. These were all with cannulate cows. It was a Latin square. So now it's only 28-day periods, not 10 weeks and cows are changing diets, but the way they did the treatments is that the RDP treatment was fixed. The cows didn't change that they only changed the molasses treatments as they went from period to period, which again is, I think a good idea cuz the response to RDP oftentimes takes weeks and weeks and weeks to show up. Whereas molasses you would think would happen much quicker. So again, the design on, on both I think, and the, the way it was done, both studies I think were, was, was adequately done or appropriately done.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (11:52):
Yeah. That, that second study with, with the room only a cannulate cows, that it was a split-plot design, as, as bill said, where they, the, there, there were six cows on the high RDP and six cows on the low RDP.
Dr. Bill Weiss (12:10):
And I, you know, I've used a lot of Latin, Latin squares, but people have to be aware of the limitations. And one is the period. You know, it is again with RDP there's I think studies are done, I think it was done at, at Madison or U S D eight showed that these, some of these differences on protein took six weeks to show up. So in a three or four-week Latin square, you never see 'em. And so you have to evaluate Latin square experiments carefully, but again, with what they did, I think they, captured most of the issues with the short-term studies
Scott Sorrell (12:47):
Now is because it takes a while for the microbiome to adjust to the different carbohydrate sources.
Dr. Bill Weiss (12:54):
That's a good question.
Scott Sorrell (13:24):
You know, the other thing, bill, I think that these were relatively late lactation cows. Does that have any implications for the results we may have seen?
Dr. Bill Weiss (13:31):
Well, then, the one study, the production study was at 110, so I'm gonna call 'em mid-lactation. Yeah. That's the other one again, I didn't write that down, but they were later than 110, five days. Okay. So, and that's all, you always have to look at that. If, but 110 days is, I think that's still high production, high intakes, and more likely to get a response late lactation. You know, a lot of times cows don't respond to anything. And, and so you have to be careful on that, but at least the production study, I don't think I would not categorize it, as late lactation.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (14:09):
And they, that production study, they, they averaged a hundred pounds of energy corrected milk,
Dr. Bill Weiss (14:17):
So, so decent production or good production, but, you know, by today's standard, very good production.
Scott Sorrell (14:24):
So why don't we dig into some of the results then that you saw from that first trial bill? What are some of the key findings and key surprises? Okay.
Dr. Bill Weiss (14:32):
Well, again, one reason I picked this is that the expected response to molasses is an increased intake, increased production, excuse me, not necessarily, you know more efficiency, but they're gonna eat more. They're gonna milk for, and these cows didn't read the book.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (15:44):
Yeah, it was, it, it was a, it, yeah, it was a five-pound drop in dry matter intake. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (15:50):
That's, that's a lot, a lot of energy
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (15:53):
And, and then, the efficiency stayed the same. So right. Then, the milk drop coincided with that drop in intake. Yep.
Dr. Bill Weiss (16:04):
And when you look at it, they did measure digestibility, which was largely unaffected. And you know, one, if efficiency, if nutrients can affect efficiency, a lot of times it's via improved digestibility that didn't happen here, but you could argue a little bit as if intake drops five pounds. You kind of expect digestibility to go up a little bit just because, of intake effects. It's not a big effect, but it's there and that didn't happen. So there might be some, some potentially negative effects on digestibility that are masked by the lower intakes. I guess the thing I'd like these guys to discuss and help me with is why did intake go down? Because again, this isn't, you can't blame them, the experimental design. It was a well-designed experiment and, and that's, that's the big question, cuz that, that explains all the other results is it is an intake effect
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (17:03):
And they got different results between these two papers. Oh, that came to intake.
Dr. Bill Weiss (17:08):
Very
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (17:09):
So, but, but we'll concentrate on this first paper with the, you know, the production study first. And of course, they hypothesize that, in this case, the drop in dry matter intake was due to increased VFA production. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (17:29):
Wow.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (17:30):
And perhaps increase propionate depressing intake. Now, these weren't early lactation cows where I don't know, I would think you might expect that more mm-hmm
Dr. Bill Weiss (18:07):
Do the math.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (18:08):
So yeah. So like 62 pounds of dry matter intake, but they, yeah, they, they saw two-kilo drops in dry matter intake
Dr. Bill Weiss (18:17):
And you know, the appropriate eight is, you can't disclude it or exclude. And like one another big study at, at this was at forge center as well. And this has probably been 10 or 15 years ago or more from Glen Broderick who found nice increases with a prop in that study, high moisture, corn went out, molasses went in so that, you know, high moisture corn produces a ton of prop innate mm-hmm
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (19:15):
So one, one thing I noticed in this paper, they, it, it, it was a 10-week study, so they were two weeks on a covariate diet and then, and then eight weeks on the treatment diet, but they, the covariate diet varied quite a bit in ingredient sources. Yeah. Right. They were on high moisture corn as the grain source. Yep. Before this, they were on different protein sources. They were feeding canola meals. Yep. And, and some other protein sources. So, all the cows changed yep. From the corn source and a lot of the protein sources as the, as, as they went, went to this diet I was calculating out on a dry matter basis, you know, so they, these cows were on, they were on the ground, dry corn and Myla during the treatment phases. So the zero molasses treatments, they were eating about 11 and a half pounds of dry matter from, from the, from the ground corn.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (20:27):
And then they went down to about 8.6 and down to just below six pounds of dry matter corn on the high molasses treatment. So the molasses treatments were course zero. And then they went to a little over three pounds of dry matter from molasses on that mid-level. And then they were over they were over six pounds of molasses on a dry matter basis, but they'd done some previous work at the forge research center up to those levels. I think Glen has done Glen Broer had done some of that work
Dr. Bill Weiss (21:09):
Previously. I think he went as high as nine, but it was close to that. And then, you know, that you always wonder is dose 10, 10% last is a lot. It's right. It's a lot you know, you start wondering if the stickiness could even be a physical impediment to intake. So that's one thing I, you know, this clearly says, you, you don't wanna go that high even at 5%. You know, that was a, a very, it wasn't as big of a drop as a 10% blast, but it still a substantial and significant drop. So, and if I remember, right, and I should have read this better is with Glen also looked at dry and wet molasses or liquid molasses and the dry didn't seem to have some, some, some of them, the effects of liquid wasn't quite linear, or there were some up and downs, but dry was pretty consistent and positive. So maybe again, it might be that it's overly sticky. And, and so you get clumps of feed that aren't, you know, aren't, isn't TMR that cows may or may not eat so that it, you know, it may help to sort, or it may make sorting worse too because it could clump a lot of stuff together. But
Dr. Glen Aines (22:19):
With, wet molasses
Dr. Bill Weiss (22:20):
You're talking. Yeah, exactly. And the dry won't do some stickiness too, but not as it tends to mix better. And the liquid, you know, when you're mixing into a TMR, it, it may not make the nice uniform TMR we all want. So, that could be an issue as well, but they didn't mention it. I'm assuming they, it was a big problem. They would've mentioned that, but
Dr. Glen Aines (22:40):
They did look at some sorting. And, as I recall, I didn't read it that carefully, but I don't think they saw a significant amount of sorting. Okay.
Dr. Bill Weiss (22:48):
Yeah. I think I think that was in the second study. I think I'm not, I'm not sure, not
Dr. Glen Aines (22:53):
Hard. It's kind of hard to separate these two papers when you're having these conversations. Yeah. Scott asked earlier about, you know, the the the drop and dry matter or intake, and, you know, you didn't see that in the second paper, but that was a much shorter period. Yeah. And the bill, you mentioned that you know, you see, it takes a long time sometimes with these R P studies to start to see the impact. So is that decrease in dry matter intake over a more extended period? Cuz you're just basically looking at the mean
Dr. Bill Weiss (23:25):
Yeah, I would think, and again, I don't like to put words in investigators, mals, but I would think they looked at time effects. They may not be in the model, but I'm assuming they would've plotted stuff out. And this drastic, I think if that was happening, they would've mentioned, I think, but again, maybe not, you can't exclude the time the, the duration, the other thing they mentioned here between the two papers was in the paper, one with the big drop, it was once a day feeding with the other one. It was twice a day. Yep. And again, that might have some effect on, on the way cows, you know, with once a day feeding, we know they tend to eat a very big meal with that first feeding and that could have screwed these cows up and they never recovered the rest of the day. And with twice-a-day feeding, they eat their first meal after being fed is still gonna be smaller than once a day. So that's, that's something to think about.
Dr. Glen Aines (24:26):
Yeah.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (24:26):
Yeah. So the only thing that the only key parameter that from a production standpoint that wasn't negatively affected by the increasing molasses doses in this case and, and the decrease in corn was, was fat, right? Milk, milk, milk, fat yield held yep. Across the treatments and, and percentage went up. Yep.
Dr. Bill Weiss (24:55):
That that's, you know, a common, common response to molasses is that fat test. If you pull out and start putting molasses in fat test goes up, and usually, fat yield goes up if the intake doesn't drop by five pounds. So, you know, it, it, it helps on fat production. There's no question if they can figure out why intake drops so much, you know, that the response probably would've been very nice. The other thing I thought was of interest before we get to the model thing is, have they measured feeding behavior, which Mo and, and it did molasses made cows eat more meals a day? They ate less food, but they ate more meals, which again, isn't normal. Normally it's, they eat less, they eat fewer meals and, and more meals is usually a good thing. You know that right? And so this may be another reason feeding some last and may be useful, cause it might, might stimulate or reduce meal size, which should make for a more stable room in this case. It wasn't beneficial, but that may have some, benefits in long term.
Dr. Glen Aines (26:07):
And that's one of the really curious things about this is you saw this better eating pattern and you would think that you would have advantages in terms of microbial protein synthesis and, you know, just efficiency of use of, of the diet. But it's just exactly the opposite, which is very, very curious.
Dr. Bill Weiss (26:27):
And you kind of wonder is again, is this some physical thing that, you know, they're, they're trying to eat this very, very sticky diet and maybe they just got tired of chewing and say, I'm gonna stop eating for a while and come back and try again. I've never seen it with 10% glasses. I don't know what the consistency would be, but yeah,
Scott Sorrell (26:48):
I,
Dr. Bill Weiss (26:49):
It has to have some effect on that. So
Scott Sorrell (26:52):
Would there be a Palant something to do with how them liking the the the sugars, the glasses, having them go back more often? Could that be part of it?
Dr. Bill Weiss (27:04):
It, it could, but you'd think if, if it was just that they'd also eat more, you know, they'd go, they'd make more meals, but they'd eat more total dry matter. And, you know, and to us, at least to me, I like sweet things. I'm gonna eat more, but we, we gotta be careful about putting human attributes on cows and whether they like sweet or not, you know, I, I don't know. It, it I'd say based on a lot of the other intake, it, other stuff is not anti palatable, but whether that's the reason we're getting these effect or not, I, I just don't know.
Scott Sorrell (27:41):
You know, unfortunately, Dr. Mary Beth hall was unable to join us tonight. I'm curious bill if you've had any conversations with her. And what're some of her thoughts related to these questions,
Dr. Bill Weiss (27:52):
We talked a bit on this and, and the prop theory is, is the bit the biggie that all this big chunk of molasses increased probate production went to the lever and via the hot theory of Mike Allen's that reduces feed intake. And it, it kind of fits. I mean, they, the other study where they did a lot of room and stuff, pronate wasn't higher, but what they're arguing is it's really a, a short term regulator, you know, pronate goes up, the cow stops eating, and that could explain the more meals presumably they didn't measure it. The meal size has to be down if, if they eat more or eat less, but more meals, then the amount eaten per meal has to be less, that fits the propionate theory. So it may be this, this short-term thing or the, or the effect of age on short-term intake regulation. And that's the thing that I think that they're putting their hat on is that, and I don't know, I didn't ask if they're gonna continue work in this area should have, but
Dr. Glen Aines (29:02):
I was surprised when they cited that about 42% of VFAs coming out of molasses were due to a rate of about 42% was proper, which I would not have expected. Yeah. So
Dr. Bill Weiss (29:21):
Yeah, especially, you know, a lot of people used molasses because it tends to where they, the belief is it's gonna produce less acidosis, then start. So high starch, you pull some starch, you'll put molasses, get the energy, but you get the reduced risk of acidosis. But if it produces this much propionate, which is a lot more than I thought as well, that may not be the thing we want to do either is that it may not help reduce acidosis with very high star diets. Again, these weren't, these were what I'd consider moderate, but that surprised me as well. And, and the higher the, was it with, with, with RDP or without one of,
Dr. Glen Aines (30:04):
With, with the
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (30:04):
RDP, with, with RDP.
Dr. Bill Weiss (30:06):
Yeah. It produced a fair amount of lactate mm-hmm
Dr. Glen Aines (30:17):
Yeah. We're jumping ahead to paper too, but yeah, that were some interesting observations. Well,
Dr. Bill Weiss (30:24):
And I guess one, one thing we haven't looked at is there was essentially no effect of RDP, no main effect of RDP on anything. Essentially, there was a few little I'm gonna call 'em flukes, but, you know, we, we would expect if these diets are deficient in RDP, we expect increased intake, increased digestibility that's well established. And, and so that suggests that these diets may not have been different enough in, in RDP or that the low, what they're calling low RDP may not have been low enough, even though the models say that they may not have been low enough.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (31:04):
The other thing I thought was interesting related to that, there were absolutely no differences ins
Dr. Glen Aines (31:12):
Yeah.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (31:12):
Across these treatments. Yep.
Dr. Bill Weiss (31:16):
People need to remember comes from RDP and CATA metabolized, amino acid in and crude proteins, the same and milk proteins, the same, you can almost pet S is gonna be the same almost all. So it's not just RDP. That makes MN. So
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (31:34):
Yeah, bill, our sugar's absorbed across the room wall.
Dr. Bill Weiss (31:39):
I don't think so, but I'm gonna, I, I would not think so based on what we know on absorption, I don't think they have, cuz they'd have to have glucose receptors. And I just, I don't know, but I'm gonna say I doubt it. Okay. And I'd almost, you know, with, as rapid as these things ferment, I don't know if there'd be much of a chance for it to even get absorbed before it's turned into the prop and, and berate.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (32:07):
So right
Dr. Glen Aines (32:13):
Back to the question about the RDP, the model seemed, to deal with the RDP differently. Yep. Right. They tended to over-predict milk production, and energy-corrected milk on the plus RDP diets, but it went just the opposite direction with the negative RDP.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (32:38):
So I think you said that backward, the high RDP, the high RDP diet, and the models underestimated energy, correct? Yeah,
Dr. Bill Weiss (32:48):
My apologies.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (32:50):
Yeah. And then, the low, the low RDP, actually the 2001 NRC was pretty close on that one. Locked
Dr. Bill Weiss (32:58):
It's pretty close.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (32:59):
Yeah. Yeah. And, and C CPS was under or was overestimating. But that, that may be, I, I think that you know, with the change coming in version seven of C CPS, my guess is that will do a better job of predicting those lower RDP diets. What
Dr. Bill Weiss (33:31):
About higher RDP diets?
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (33:36):
I think I think it'll get closer to predictions both ways.
Dr. Bill Weiss (33:43):
Yes. One thing I, and I'm, I'm not that familiar with CN CPS. It ought to be very clear on that. So you guys can talk more on that, but on NRC, a lot of people get confused and think any allowable milk equals predicted milk. It does not. It has nothing to do with predicted milk. It simply says, if the cow eats this much energy, you take out maintenance, there's enough energy left to produce this amount of milk. You, you can get energy allowable milk from a dry cow, but so you, the comparison they make on milk is they need to take, they have body weight change, that's milk potential, and they need to convert that to milk and say, this is the energy allowable milk. And if you do that, they actually, the NRC did pretty well on the, on the low NR, low RDP.
Dr. Bill Weiss (34:43):
This, all this extra energy that NRC says could go to milk went to body weight instead. So just be, be careful when you evaluate papers. If they're looking at allowable milk and actual milk, cuz they're, they are not synonymous. NRC did not partition energy. And so it just says this much energy, if it all went to milk with zero body weight change, this is how much milk they produce. So I, I, I do think they are overstating the excess, the the the the over prediction is not as over predicting as they think it's pretty close, at least with the NRC model. The underpredicting is another question that these cows should not be losing body condition. They didn't. So then that's, that's a, a true error, but the over prediction was probably not.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (35:40):
So, bill, I know you addressed this a little bit earlier, but, but I've gotta ask the question again. How, how do you think 2021 would predict relative to, oh, one?
Dr. Bill Weiss (35:53):
It, won't predict the lower intake. I guarantee that that will not happen. The, cause it would predict with the, with the intake equation, it's gonna produ predict essentially equal intake cuz the things that affect in the predicted intake didn't change among diets. So wouldn't predict that it would on it, my guess is, that it would with, with molasses added in taking out corn storage energy will go up, mega cows per kilo will go up a little bit at 10%. It may go up, you know, substantial, but not a substantial, but a measurable amount, which would mean you'd get more milk. If the intake was the same, you would get more milk if you adjust for the intake. I, I think it would do pretty well. I don't this RDP difference though my guess. And again, I'm gonna do this sometimes when I have some time, is that it would predict a difference in, in the RDP differences I think would be better estimated than the old one. But I, I do think on the energy side, if you just, the, either, if intake went down, milk production would not go down as much as the model predicted energy allow milk would not go down as much because they're gonna get more energy per chemo. So,
Scott Sorrell (37:34):
So what implications, if any, does this data have for the models
Dr. Bill Weiss (37:42):
Be, be careful about it. I don't think they're doing well on the molasses edition on predicting responses, to molasses on the protein thing. Again, I'm not gonna comment on CN CPS and let these other guys do on do it that they it's not. I think the old one is always overvalued, always overstated protein requirements, or I shouldn't say always, but generally, protein requirements were too high on the old one. The new ones are gonna be lower. So hopefully it will fit, fit better, but be careful with Mohi molasses diets. I don't know how well these models will predict responses.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (38:29):
Then, the other thing with I'm gonna give a plug to, to our September real, real science lecture series here. And because of that, that will be Mike van Amber talking about version seven of C CPS. But my understanding is that will have the ability to better model the Dal variations and rheumatoid ammonia levels, which, which should help better predict what would be happening here.
Dr. Bill Weiss (39:01):
Yep.
Scott Sorrell (39:02):
Should we try to duplicate this data before we start thinking about making changes to the models
Dr. Bill Weiss (39:11):
You know, no model ever gonna be perfect. You always, you know, you want, you always be careful of any study, but you know, there's something I'd think this, this date and this should be evaluated carefully with these models to see or take like Roderick's data to see how the models predicted it, where it got, did what we think and then see where this one differs, where it didn't do what we think and go from there. But again, there's a reason these cows did what they did. I don't know what it is, but there's a reason. And maybe these models might use using molasses studies where cows were, were, were better and this study finds out, what is being predicted differently. And maybe that will help answer the question, but yeah, you always have to be careful with the results from one study, always.
Scott Sorrell (40:05):
Yeah. So you say you don't know why the cows did what they did if you were designing another study to try to better understand that what would you do bill?
Dr. Bill Weiss (40:15):
Okay. Once again, if it's just the concentration, you know, I, I don't think 10% glasses is, is practical either. So, I would cut it at a lower level, max it out at 6% or something three and six, something like that to just eliminate maybe too much on the protein end. I would probably if I worried about RDP, I would probably have two different crude protein levels. In other words, fix RUP at some number and feed 10, 9% RDP, and 11 or 12% RDP to isolate the effect of RDP. Not again, because you know, they might have fixed the RDP, but then induced an R P deficiency. You just don't know mm-hmm
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (41:36):
Yeah, I was wondering that too. It's brown, midrib, corn silage, first of all, it's all BMR corn silage. And, again, if you look at the covariate diet versus the treatment diets in that study, the covariate diet was higher, was higher in, in alfalfa styling. So yeah, there were some, differences going from that Cova diet in PDF and, and forge, particle size, and so forth.
Dr. Bill Weiss (42:13):
Yeah. So, you know, may maybe with these, I'm not gonna call it marginal cuz there no data to support that this was low, but it, you know, with, with maybe marginal fiber diets, maybe these very high molasses, maybe it's just a, they didn't have enough fiber to, to counteract these very for diets.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (42:34):
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (42:36):
10 percent's a lot.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (42:37):
Yeah. I guess that's a good point.
Dr. Bill Weiss (42:39):
One, last point I think was really good in this paper is they pointed out, you know, molasses is, is a good source of sugars, but it's also 18% Ash. Yeah. Ash has 0% energy. That's one number I bet my life on is the energy content of Ash and Ash, can I do some, they didn't, I, I do want to criticize a little bit. They didn't report the mineral concentrations in these diets. They reported Ash, but you know, you add that much Ash to diets, you know, you can screw things up. And so, you know, the mineral balance you have to pay potential with molasses, you, you are adding a lot of minerals and that has to be taken into account with the formulation.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (43:26):
You're adding a lot of potassium when you're adding MOSIS right?
Dr. Bill Weiss (43:30):
Yeah. four or 5% K it's got a lot of all the Decca and it's got a lot of chlorides. It has a not, not UN sulfur. It has some sulfur, not as bad as distillers, but 6.6 0.7% sulfur which again, with, if they didn't adjust their diets, UN sulfur, if you had 10% molasses with 0.6% sulfur, that's a fair amount of sulfur that can be some negative effects. And then a fair amount of sodium. But it K is by far the biggest, biggest mineral in it, which usually is a good thing for lactating cows, but it is counteracted by the high sulfur high chide.
Scott Sorrell (44:15):
We started our discussion with a commentary about how many dairy farmers are currently using asses. What are the implications for people that are, are feeding molasses? What, would your recommendations be the basis? This study bill
Dr. Bill Weiss (44:31):
I'd stick with moderate inclusions, two to 3%, which again, I think is, is the, I won't call it the industry standard, but very common. That's a very common inclusion rate. A lot of the data support that, that level of supplementation, th this paper would suggest if you are kind of low in, in forage NDF, or using highly fermentable forage sources like BMR, you might consider Yankee it, it may not have the benefits you think it's having. If it's a typical forage diet standard corn silage NDFs around 30 or so., I'd stick with it, but if you're going lower in forage consider reducing or eliminating glasses, but two, to 3%, I think, this paper would not discourage me from supplementing two or 3% glasses.
Scott Sorrell (45:28):
Anything else we need to discuss relative to this paper?
Dr. Bill Weiss (45:33):
Not for me.
Scott Sorrell (45:34):
Okay. What about the second paper? Have we covered that adequately or are there some items that we need to discuss there?
Dr. Bill Weiss (45:40):
I, I say I'm not a rooming guy, but
Dr. Glen Aines (46:48):
Yeah. The inconsistency, what I saw was that they saw another change in ate between treatments. Yeah. So when you start using ate as a possible explanation of the first paper's results, this is inconsistent. I, I interpreted it that way at least. So not sure what exactly to say about that. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (47:13):
And that then again, with these once a day, feedings, the meal patterns are very different and that, that might be where again, that first, really big meal after a first time after the only time they're fed that might have if it was appropriate, anything that's might be where the effect did. And with the two X, it's, it would be less, less dramatic. So
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (47:40):
Now in, and the second paper yeah, definitely different outcomes as far as intake and, and production, they, they did start to see some, a little interaction between RDP level. Yeah, yep. MLS level.
Dr. Bill Weiss (48:00):
Yep. On concern, I've gotta look here.
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (48:07):
So, so milk, fat yield. It was, it was a quadratic effect there that, that that mid-level of molasses okay. With a, with a high R D P salt increased fat yield mm-hmm
Dr. Bill Weiss (48:28):
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (48:30):
Compared to the low RDP. Yep. And there's some tend, there's a tendency there for higher milk, protein percent with, on the high RDP diet. Yep. There's a lot of variability in this study you know, from a statistics standpoint, but they're at numerically that's a pretty big difference in, in milk, protein percent, almost two-tenths of a point.
Dr. Bill Weiss (49:01):
Yeah. I think with again, the first experiment, I think plenty of power for when, when you do factorials you set to power up to detect interactions. That's, that's where you experimented with, with this one with 12 cows it was 12 cows, right? Yeah. So 36 cow periods. It, it is that's, that's less power again, it's a lot of power for the main manufacture for nonfactorial things, but for interactions, that's getting, I'm gonna say marginal it's, it's better than most people do. I wanna say there's more power in this than most Latin squares, but again, for interactions, it's a little, especially with a split-plot interaction. It's, it's a little bit limited.
Dr. Glen Aines (49:54):
Yeah. The only other thing that I would comment about was that there there are some differences in the fermentation patterns between the treatments and they do allude to the fact that they think that maybe looking at microbiome down the road might be an interesting thing to do, to see if we've seen shifts in microbial populations that might have some interesting ramifications. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (50:23):
And with, with the technology we have now, that's getting to be pretty, I don't know how to do it, but it's getting and I think you're gonna see more and more of that just because it, now we can do these things with molecular biology that we could never in the past do. So
Scott Sorrell (50:45):
Bill, any final thoughts on that second paper? I see that they've called the last call. Wanna make sure we get the, get the information in that you wanna, you wanna share? No,
Dr. Bill Weiss (50:54):
Again, I, if you, you, with these series, I think it's always as important to read both papers. Cause if you don't, you, you would've missed, the short term, but I'm going to say fermentation study the very different intake results you would overlook. But again, a lot of times these fermentation or digestion studies support the production studies. And again, if you correct for, the difference in intake, they, I think are relatively supportive. So.
Scott Sorrell (51:25):
All right. So with the last call, I'm gonna have each of you guys talk about kind of the key takeaways, key implications for dairy nutrition, dairy farmers. Glen, would you mind if we start with you?
Speaker 5 (51:38):
Tonight's pub toast is brought to you by Niros precision release nitrogen to maximize room and microflora with the consistent release of nature to turn up the dial on room efficiency and productivity visit bache.com to learn more.
Dr. Glen Aines (51:55):
Well, I, I think probably the biggest thing for me was very basic. I was pretty shocked at the degree of dropping in dry matter intake as a result of the molasses editions a little bit intrigued by the concept that maybe things are a little too sticky or, the more frequent meals and what effect, you know, that might have. And then I definitely, from the second paper, it just seems like there are some clear shifts in the fermentation patterns. And I'd love to see them do that microbiome study to see what is potentially going on there. So, all
Scott Sorrell (52:39):
Right. Thank you, Glen clay would say you,
Dr. Clay Zimmerman (52:42):
Well, I think bill hit on a lot of important things a little earlier when, when he was summarizing some of this, but, but yeah, the researchers were, they were, they were shocked at the, at the results with the reduced dry matter intake in, in that first study on, on the production side. So I am, I am, I am intrigued by Bill's comment about, you know, the lower NDF levels and especially with, you know, with highly digestible fiber in the diet, if that's maybe playing some role here as well. So it I, I would say that that, that would be a watch out here in that, in that case. And, and of course, the high level of additions of molasses was quite a high level compared to what we would typically see in the field
Scott Sorrell (53:38):
Very well. And the bill, any final thoughts?
Dr. Bill Weiss (53:41):
No, just keep molasses supplementation or inclusion rates reasonable. And I think reasonable is under 5%. I think these papers show that feeding behavior feeding management may have may cuz it's not been tested but may have a big effect on responses to, to diets. And lastly, nothing works a hundred percent of the time and, this shows that that's why we replicate experiments. So, you know, it's not, nothing is ever gonna work all the time.
Scott Sorrell (54:15):
All right. Thank you for that bill.
Dr. Glen Aines (54:16):
Looking forward to hearing what you find out when you run this through the new,
Dr. Bill Weiss (54:22):
You know,
Scott Sorrell (54:25):
All right. Sounds good. Well, thank you, bill. This has been an interesting conversation. Thank you for bringing these two papers to us. Clay and Glen. Thank you for once again, being part of the journal club experience, we appreciate having you here and look forward to the next time. It's been a very interesting conversation and should have implications for years to come as always want to put a big thank you out there to our loyal listeners for stopping by once again here at the real science exchange to spend some time with us hope you learned something hope you had some fun and hope to see you next time here through real science exchange, where it's always a happy hour and you're always among friends.
Speaker 5 (55:01):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to anh.marketing@balchem.com with any suggestions and we'll work hard to add them to the schedule. Don't forget to leave a five-star rating on your way out. You can request your real science exchange. T-Shirt in just a few easy steps, just like or subscribe to the real science exchange and send us a screenshot along with your address and t-shirt size to anh.marketing@balchem.com. Che's real science lecture series of webinars continues with ruminant-focused topics on the first Tuesday of every month. Monogastric-focused topics on the second Tuesday of each month and quarterly topics for the companion animal segment visit bache.com/real science to see the latest schedule and to register for upcoming webinars.