Articles

This is a collection of articles published by Dairyland Laboratories, Inc. or distributed with permission.

• Fighting FUD in New Crop Corn Silage

  Published September 6, 2023

  Each year’s growing conditions bring their own stresses on crops. Currently, there are large pockets of the U.S. dairy market with moisture conditions from completely normal to extreme drought. This entire range of conditions can be found just within the state of Wisconsin, raising concerns about the variability within this year’s corn silage crop. Judging by the phone calls and emails we receive at Dairyland Labs, August and September are the months of peak fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in the folks tasked with feeding the next crop of corn silage to dairy cows.

• Sample Management Center Highlight: Sample Status Visibility

  Published January 12, 2023

  Want to know if your sample made it to the lab yet? Curious when you can expect the results to be published? Need to double check if you ordered the right analysis? The answers can be found on the Feed > Status page of portal.dairylandlabs.com or Dairyland’s Android and iOS apps. Recent updates to this page include: - Custom default filters allow you to see exactly what you want each time you open the page, including date ranges, sample statuses, and column selection. - Exporting status data to a csv file - Additional filters for account name, lot name, and extra description fields

• Chloride by NIR Now Available for Forages

  Published June 28, 2022

  For more than 30 years, Dairyland has avoided including chloride in NIR packages because mineral accuracy by NIR is poor and we felt DCAD balancing should be done using chemistry or XRF analyses. Those facts haven’t changed. Mineral analysis by NIR is always going to be risky because minerals do not produce NIR signal. The best an NIR model can do is make a rough estimation based on the feed type and organic components like protein and fiber. For minerals, chemistry and XRF provide much more accurate options.

• Background on New Mycotoxin Packages

  Published March 22, 2021

  In January, Dairyland Labs introduced our new mycotoxin testing program. We made the decision to move to all one method (HPLC/MS/MS) of analysis and move all mycotoxin testing in-house. This change has provided us with several opportunities to better serve our clients. We now have more flexibility to design mycotoxin testing packages that will provide optimum value by covering the most common use cases for our customers. Here’s some background on how our new packages were developed.

• Expanded Metrics for Commodities/Ingredients: NDFD & UCP in NIR CNCPS 6.5

  Published March 22, 2021

  Dairyland Labs has offered the NIR Select Package on several commodity feeds for 2+ years now. After introducing the NIR CNCPS 6.5 Package for many of these commodity feeds last fall, we are now ready to expand upon those offerings. The CNCPS offering adds NDFD at 12, 72 & 120hrs for many fibrous feeds, as well as the Ross UCP (Undigestable Crude Protein) on some higher protein feeds. During Fall 2020, we included UCP values for Distillers Grains, and we are now expanding that offering to Soybean Meals and Canola Meals. The new NIR offerings will enable faster turn around time on commodity analyses and is well positioned as a tool to detect and quantify variation at feed mills and farm feeding centers.

• NIR Package Updates: Digestibility Time Points for Ear Corn, Earlage, Snaplage

  Published October 29, 2020

  Dairyland Labs has been working hard to continue to add value to our NIR Packages. Just in time for harvest season, the latest updates add digestibility time points for ear corn, earlages and snaplages. There are also additional digestibility time points specific for hay/hay crop silages and corn silages.

• 12 hr NDFD - A tool for differentiating alfalfa and grass

  Published October 30, 2019

  Enough with the NDFD time points already, right? The information across all the time points within a sample or feed type can be highly redundant (Have you ever seen a sample with high NDFD120 but low NDFD240?). Generally, the dairy industry started with time points that approximated rumen retention time (48, 30, or 24 depending on the system and target animal). Then we added long time points to cleanly define the portion of fiber that is indigestible (72,120,240). So why would we now want to add a 12hr time point to forages?

• Breaking Down By-Product Fiber Digestion

  Published October 30, 2019

  One of the important niches beef and dairy production fill in our economy is the conversion of byproduct fiber into valuable beef and dairy products. While the marketing of byproducts is commonly focused on their fat or protein characteristics, they also bring significant amounts of fiber to diets. Perhaps alarmingly, we find more variation in fiber digestibility across byproduct ingredients than we do across the major forage types that are routinely analyzed for NDFD. As we’ve found in the major forage types, single time points and digestibility indexes struggle to tell the whole story about what happens between the time fiber enters the rumen and when it exits as VFA, microbial protein, gas, or undigested material.

• Proper Sample Identification

  Published October 30, 2019

  Providing detailed sample descriptions is rarely a top of mind concern when filling out sample submission forms. Several Dairyland employees, who previously were Dairyland customers, have stated variations of, “If I had known how important sample identification was when I was sending in samples, I would have put more effort into it.”

• Dairyland Soil Sampling Study

  Published October 8, 2019

  Dairyland Laboratories continues to conduct useful research while providing great service to our customers. Two common questions that we receive at the lab are “How many cores should be collected for each sample?” and “Does sampling depth have an influence on soil test data?” During spring 2019, we conducted a 2-part soil sampling study that helps answer those questions. The first part was to take 20 sample cores around a standard grid circle to illustrate variability in soil test data depending on the number of cores taken at a given grid point. The second was to take 5-acre grid samples across an entire field at varying depths in the same holes. Samples were taken from 0-2 inches, 2-6 inches and 6-10 inches.

• Beyond the Raw Metics for Corn Silage

  Published August 22, 2019

  On many dairies, procuring corn silage is the single largest feed investment made each year. While multiple business entities may be involved in seed selection, planting, fertilizing, irrigating, and harvesting the crop, once it’s in storage at the farm it is an enormous investment whose fortune is almost entirely cast. In other words, once it’s in storage the options for improving its performance are severely limited. This makes handling all the pre-storage management decisions crucial. None of the metrics we have available for making these decisions are perfect, but they can be useful if we understand their purpose and the aspects of our decisions that the metrics do not directly inform.

• 6 Tips to Ensure Speedy Sample Results

  Published August 22, 2019

  When clients send in samples for analysis, we know they would like those results as soon as possible. Most of the time, various decisions and someone’s business is impacted by those results. While trying to get those results back to you in a timely manner, our team of lab technicians are continually striving to provide the most accurate results. They deal with hundreds of individual samples every day, each with their own unique set of analysis requests. Depending on the request, the information is often collated and combined from different locations, utilizing refined resources from across the Dairyland network. Ever wonder what you can do to make sure you get your feed/forage test results back as soon as possible with accurate information? Here are a few tips to help.

• NIR or Chemistry: Choosing the Most Appropriate Testing Method

  Published July 19, 2019

  Selecting the most appropriate analysis on a sample can be challenging when faced with many NIR and chemistry options. While chemistry will always be the gold standard of nutrient analysis, NIR is a secondary method which is very repeatable and economical. Dairyland offers a broad range of NIR and chemistry testing services for feed, forage, and manure samples and each product type has its own set of testing procedures and methodology. In some cases, samples that may be eligible for NIR analysis may not be appropriate for that type of analysis. Samples that are extremely high in ash, treated with urea, treated with molasses, or an unusual species would not be appropriate for NIR analysis. Analyzing TMR’s by NIR should also be done with caution and protein from urea and sugar in the form of lactose may not be accurately estimated by NIR. In addition, the reference method for ether extract (fat) may not accurately characterize total fat when the TMR contains calcium salts. Dairyland’s staff is always available to talk through the suitability of NIR for particular applications.

• Analyzing Reduced Lignin Varieties via NIR

  Published May 8, 2019

  With the new alfalfa crop quickly approaching and more customers trying a reduced lignin variety for the first time, we thought it would be helpful to address the most common questions we receive. Disclaimer – Dairyland recognizes there are multiple varieties in the marketplace that have lowered the level of lignin in alfalfa through different methods. As a commercial lab, it’s uncommon for a sample to arrive to us labeled as “alfalfa”, let alone “reduced lignin” or a specific brand name. We are not in a position to make any comparisons between specific varieties in the market today.

• Nutrient Variation: Corn Distillers’ Grains

  Published May 8, 2019

  Corn distillers’ grains are a major ingredient in most beef and dairy markets, with the U.S. producing over 40 million tons of dried distillers’ grains last year (USDA-ERS). In markets near ethanol plants, wet and modified distillers can provide additional value, and occasionally additional challenges. In this article, we will highlight the primary nutrient variations within distillers’ grains.

• Neutral Detergent Fiber Analysis & Methods - Progress through the Years

  Published April 17, 2019

  A brief description of changes in fiber analysis.

• Mycotoxin Levels in Corn Products

  Published February 19, 2019

  We continue to see increased levels of mold, yeast, zearalenone, and vomitoxin in this year’s corn and corn silage samples. More recently, we’ve also seen an uptick in zearalenone and vomitoxin in corn byproducts including distillers grain, gluten feed, and corn screenings.

• Is there a role for NIR on your farm?

  Published March 13, 2014

  With advancements in instrument manufacturing and computing power, we've seen a renewed interest in bringing NIR to the farm. Here we take a look at why NIR will work well in some situations but not others.

• Is there a role for NIR on the farm? Part 2

  Published January 17, 2014

  Reprinted from Dairy Herd Network...In the first part of this series, we discussed the basics of how NIR works, how drying and grinding affect the spectral properties of the sample, and what spectral ranges are covered by various NIR instruments that are commercially available. In Part 2, we will look at how these factors affect the accuracy of NIR measurements, and then finish up with Part 3, which will propose some possible use cases for NIR on the farm.

• Is there a role for NIR on the farm? Part 1

  Published November 8, 2013

  Reprinted from Dairy Herd Network...The last five years have illustrated a renewed interest in bringing NIR feed testing technology to the farm. In the following three part series we hope to shed some light on the current efforts to bring NIR to the farm, illustrate where some limitations are, and propose practical use cases.