Testing times for stockfeed

摘要

Technology commercialised as AusScan by Australia's Pork Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) is successfully using new Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR) tests to improve the transparency of grain quality between buyers and sellers. With energy grains such as wheat and barley so critical to livestock feeding systems and producers experiencing narrowing margins, such an innovation will improve returns and reduce cost of production. AusScan Program Manager, John Spragg, said with the new NIR calibrations being commercialised, instruments could now determine the energy content of grain for particular animal types. "Many livestock producers and their nutritionists currently assume certain book values for the energy content of cereal grains and when these grains are added to other ingredients in a ration, the feed is often deficient or excessive in the required energy target," he said.