145
Natural grass and plant residue qualities and values to support lactating cows requirement on forage at Indonesian
small scale enterprise and traditional dairy farming
Despal
1,
, Jazmi Malyadi
1
, Yessy Destianingsih
1
, Ayu Lestari
1
, Hari Hartono
1
, Luki Abdullah
1
1
Department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, Faculty of Animal Science, Bogor Agricultural University, Bogor, 16680, Indonesia
Corresponding author: despal04yahoo.com
Abstract
Dairy farming land becomes scarce due to high land-use competition. To be survive, dairy farmer utilize locally available natural
grass and agricultural by-product. Research to explore the availability of agricultural by-products, to assess their quality and to determine their values
in supporting small enterprise and traditional dairy farming in Indonesia have been conducted in a 3 years serial project. The study have been
conducted in small enterprise dairy estate area KUNAK Cibungbulang District, Bogor Regency and traditional dairy farming of KPSBU
cooperative members in Lembang District, West Bandung Regency. The results showed that farmer in KUNAK only used the most available and
commercially transported agricultural by-product rice straw, cabbage plant by-product and corn stover in average percentage of 23.9, 0.6 and 0.98
out of 13.6 kg DM offered in wet seasons and 22.0, 2.77 and 0.17 out of 22 kg DM offered in drought season respectively, while farmer in Lembang
used rice straw and banana leaves in wet season at percentage of 8.15 and 0.04 out of 24.34 kg DM offered and rice straw, vegetable plant byproduct,
corn stover at amount of 3.2, 0.19 and 0.24 out of 23.4 kg DM offered in drought season. Although elephant grass is the major forage contributor for
forage supply in both systems, however, natural grass contribution and plant by-product determined sustainability of dairy farming especially in drought
season.
Keywords
dairy, natural grass, plant by-product, traditional, small enterprise
1. Introduction
Dairy farming is a land-based farming activity which needs land for forage supply, animal housing, waste treatment, feed storage, etc with stocking rate
2-3 livestock unit LUha Sturaro et al., 2013 for dairy farming in Alpine mountain area to 10 LUha in Indonesia. Although dairy farming had been
known to provide additional income for Indonesian farmers, dairy farming however was seen as landless farm activity Riethmuller et al., 1999. Based
146 on Dairy National Survey 2012, average Indonesian dairy farmer
cultivated only 0.44 ha of land to provide 6.07 LU cattle they kept. The land only sufficient to provide 62.7 of forage needed. Climate problem
46.3 and lack of land 35 have been reported to be the major limiting factor in providing sustainable good quality forage. To be survive, the
farmer need to purchase or collect locally available or commercially transportable of plant residue such as rice straw, corn stover, horticulture
plant residue beside collecting natural grass grown in surrounding the farm.
Contribution of the plant residue and natural grass to sufficiency of nutrient for dairy cattle in traditional and small scale dairy enterprise as well as detail
information of their quality have not been explored. The study was aimed at providing information on natural grass and plant residue types and quality
used by the farmer and calculating seasonal nutrient contribution in sustaining forage supply for dairy cattle.
2. Materials and Methods
The study have been conducted in a small enterprise dairy estate area KUNAK Cibungbulang District, Bogor Regency and traditional dairy
farming of KPSBU cooperative members in Lembang District, West Bandung Regency. Twenty farmers and 133 lactating cows in KUNAK and
30 farmers and 115 lactating cows in Lembang have been interviewed and observed. The type and amount of feed used have been identified, weighed
and sampled. The feed were analyzed in laboratory for proximate composition DM, ash, CP, lipid, and CF according to Naumann and
Bassler 1997 procedure, mineral contents Ca and P according to Reitz et al
. 1987 preparation procedure and Taussky Shorr 1953 procedure for P and AOAC 2003 procedure for Ca determinations. Rumen
fermentability and digestibility followed one- and two-stage method of Tilley and Terry 1963. The VFA concentration have been measured using
steam distillation method, while NH
3
concentration have been quantified using Conway micro diffusion method from General Laboratory Procedure
Dept. Dairy Science Wisconsin University 1969. In vitro gas production, OMD, ME and NE
l
were determined using Hohenheim gas test Close and Menke, 1986. The impact of seasons was tested using T-test, while other
factors were compared using descriptive statistics.
3. Results and Discussions
The type of natural grasses and plant residues offered to cows in KUNAK and KPSBU are shown in Table 1. Low quality plant residue such as rice
straw was predominantly used by farmer in KUNAK both during drought
