Editor:
Dr. Tom Overton
Assistant Professor of Dairy Management/Nutrition
Department of Animal Science
Cornell University
272 Morrison Hall
Phone:  (607) 255-2878
FAX:  (607) 255-1335
Email:  tro2@cornell.edu

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Total Dairy Nutrition, a monthly electronic newsletter dedicated to providing the latest technical support to professional nutritionists throughout New York State. This newsletter is the first step in our development of Cornell’s new "Total Dairy Management" web site that we envision will become the "one-stop shopping" resource and platform for dairy management extension and continuing education programming in the future. Development of this newsletter was spurred directly from your responses to the survey that we conducted during the Feed Dealers meetings in November 1998. We hope that you find the information provided in this forum to be useful in making you and the dairy producers that you serve more successful. We welcome all feedback and suggestions of topics for us to address in subsequent editions of this newsletter. Please take the time to email me at the address above to sign up for our notification service, which will let you know electronically when we post each issue to our Web site.

Thank you to our survey respondents. The following tabulated results are provided for your information and to give you some idea of the direction of our future programming.

Total surveys completed:  148

• Yes: 147
  

• No: 1
  

Question 2. Do you have email capability?

• Yes: 126
  

• No: 20
  

Question 3. Do you have access to the Internet?

• Yes: 123
  

• No: 24
  

Note: Several respondents to questions 2 and 3 indicated that they currently did not have access, but would have access soon. These were counted as "No" for both questions.

Question 4. How interested would you be in receiving extension material via:

Note: answers were on a 1 to 5 scale—1 meant "Forget it!" and 5 meant "Let’s do it!" Data are provided as percentages of the total.

Question 5. What is your primary occupation?

Question 6. Would you be interested in continuing education credit (i.e., AABP, ARPAS) for completion of educational modules or courses?

• Yes: 103

• No: 36

Question 7. Would you be interested in either Cornell course credit or a certificate program?

• Yes: 101

• No: 34

The establishment of this Web-based newsletter was an obvious first step in this process. I believe that the approach we are taking combines the advantages of maintaining easy accessibility to previous issues on our Web site with the convenience of email notification so that you don’t spend time checking our site to see if we have posted the next issue. Over the next few months, we will construct the "Total Dairy Management" web site and rapidly add information to this site.

As I write this, construction workers are finishing the transformation of Morrison Hall Room 164 into a state of the art computer classroom and Distance Education Facility that will enable us to take the lead in Dairy Management distance education. Construction of this facility has been funded almost entirely from Dairy Industry sources and the facility will be equipped with PicTel, enabling live two-way video and audio interaction with remote sites throughout New York State. Look for us to develop courses specifically focused on Dairy Nutrition and also on other aspects of Dairy Management during the next year. Again, any feedback or suggestions that you provide are welcomed.

The series of workshops focused on the upcoming change to component pricing for milk and the relationships of forage quality and acidosis to milk production and composition continues through March. Successful workshops already have been held in Cortland, Lewis, Franklin, St. Lawrence, Broome, and Oneida Counties. Upcoming dates and contacts are provided below

The papers included in the Proceedings of the 1998 Feed Dealer Seminars have been posted to this Web Site. You need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer in order to download these documents. Acrobat Reader will allow you to either read or print the documents. If you do not have this program, we have provided a link on the main page for you to download it (it is a free program). The titles and authors are listed below. Just click on each paper to download it!

The papers included in the Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Dairy Management Schools also have been posted to this Web Site. Again, just click and download!

In the first experiment conducted to assess overall production responses to bST since it was approved in 1994, Cornell researchers Dale Bauman and Bob Everett matched DHI records from Northeast DHI, Vermont DHIA, and Pennsylvania DHIA with a list of bST users and nonusers supplied by Monsanto. Nonusers were defined as producers that never purchased bST from Monsanto. Users were defined as producers who initiated bST use on or before June 1994, had continuous use through March 1998, and supplemented at least 50% of the eligible cows in milk. A total of 340 herds (176 nonuser herds, 164 user herds) with a total of over 27,000 cows in milk were identified. Over 2,000,000 cow test-day records were included in the test-day model analysis. Results of this analysis indicated that yields of milk, fat, and protein increased significantly in response to bST (6+ lb milk/cow per day for each cow milking on test day; 8+ lb of milk/cow per day for each cow milking on test day over the last two-thirds of lactation). The response to bST was consistent in each of the four years—there was no increase in response over time or decrease in response over time. Milk responses tended to increase with days in milk. The user and nonuser herds experienced similar variations in test-day milk and milk component production. Administration of bST did not affect average age in the herd; both nonuser and user herds experienced a decrease in average age in the herd. Finally, administration of bST did not affect average days in milk of herds, indicating that bST did not increase calving interval in user herds. The complete report of this research can be downloaded from the Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Dairy Management Schools above. -- T. R. Overton

At the recent Winter Dairy Management Schools, a question was asked about vitamin A levels in heifer rations. The 1989 Dairy NRC indicates that heifer rations should contain 1,000 IU/lb. of vitamin A. The 1987 NTC publication "Vitamin Tolerance of Animals" suggests that the upper safe level for vitamin A is about 30 times the requirement. This would be 30,000 IU/lb. of feed. Even though many heifer rations contain vitamin A levels higher than the NRC requirement, they are well below the upper safe level and should not impair performance. -- L. E. Chase

The first issue of Northeast Dairy Business, a partnership between HFW Publications and Cornell’s PRO-DAIRY program, has been published. Each issue will contain a section authored by one of PRO-DAIRY’s specialists and entitled "The Manager". The January/February 1999 issue contains a series of excellent articles on financial management written by Jason Karszes, PRO-DAIRY’s Farm Business Management Specialist. Call (800) 334-1904 for subscription information or questions.

Future issues of this newsletter will focus less on startup issues and more on providing technical summaries for your use together with access to more information. Please email me at tro2@cornell.edu to be added to our list of subscribers for notification of new issues.