Re: Re: what type of forage? wheat and rye grass?

[Guest guest]

>Needless to say, even rapidly growing, young wheat and rye grass

>growing in low soil fertility would not produce butter highest in

>activator X and soluble vitamins.

Of course, but since every vegetable species has a unique nutritional

profile, it seems logical and quite likely that, given a constant level of

soil fertility -- even an ideal level of soil fertility -- certain forages

will be more nutritious for cows and will yield beef and dairy that are

more nutritious for humans.

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[Guest guest]

Chi-

>Not only do different vegetable species have different nutritional

>profiles, but the same species grown in different soil fertility can

>exhibit wide variations in nutritional profiles.

I certainly don't disagree with that!

>Your hypothesis that certain forages grown in constant soil fertility

>or in ideal soil fertility will be more nutritious for cows and will

>yield beef and dairy that are more nutritious for humans is

>interesting.

Just seems like common sense to me. Given constant soil fertility, a field

growing corn and hybrid grasses, for example, will provide inferior forage

compared to a field growing traditional rye grass and weeds. Holding soil

fertility constant, different grasses, different forages, different weeds

and different herbs will all have different nutritional profiles, and some

will inevitably yield better meat and milk than others.

>Since the best results would be expected from an ideal

>level of soil fertility, would you please explain the physical

>description of an ideal level of soil fertility?

It's not necessary to my point, and I'm not qualified to describe the

ultimate in soil fertility. I know something about gardening -- more now

than when I gardened, ironically enough -- but I'm hardly the last word on

farming. If I were to start farming, I'd seek to learn a lot more.

>What type of experiment would you design for the local Ag

>college to test your hypothesis?

It wouldn't be very complex, really -- I'd find a field (or group of

fields) with even soil fertility, as even as possible in every measurable

respect, and then I'd fence it into partitions, planting different sets of

forages in different sections. I'd then feed different cows on different

sections and measure their health and the nutritional quality of the meat

and milk yielded from those cows. Ideally I'd measure the health of the

offspring of those cows and of the people eating meat and dairy from those

cows too. I'd also like to see the forages assayed, as well as the cows'

manure.

>The evidence from Albrecht, at least at this point, suggests

>to me that grazing animals choose their nutrition based on soil

>fertility, not on the species of plant that happens to be growing

>there.

Perhaps, though someone else made an interesting point, that grazing

animals prefer tender young shoots over other considerations. But even if

that's 100% true, and the youth of the shoots is irrelevant, there's still

likely to be some kind of difference resulting from feeding cows different

fodder grown from identical soil.

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