By Zac Braxton-Smith Queensland Country Life
The research involved feeding 30 Droughtmaster steers different amounts of pulse supplement mixed with Mitchell grass. Picture: supplied.
New research has shown that cattle in central and North Queensland can achieve similar weight gain performance on feed supplements grown in local areas, such as mungbeans and pigeon peas, as they do on imported options.
Central Queensland University livestock researcher Dr Simon Quigley presented data at the TropAg conference in Brisbane on Tuesday, November 11, showing how Droughtmaster cattle performed in pens on feed supplemented with locally grown pulses.
It was part of a broader CQU research project on options to replace feed supplements imported or trucked in from the south, such as soybean, canola, or palm kernel meals, with locally grown crops.
Dr Quigley said the results indicated that feeding heifers that typically grazed on Mitchell grass a pigeon pea supplement could reduce the time they took to reach their target mating weight of more than 300 kilograms by months.
Dr Willian Luiz Da Souza, Dr Amy Bates, Dr Joe Eyre, Professor Delwar Akbar, and Dr Simon Quigley, all of Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, except Dr Eyre, who is a University of Queensland grains researcher based at Gatton. Picture by Zac Braxton-Smith.
“The results in the pen compared well to feeding cattle soybean meal on both weight gain and methane emission intensity,” Dr Quigley said.
“On weight gain, mungbeans and pigeon peas provided a daily gain of about 0.7 to 0.8 kilograms for every 10 grams of dry matter the cattle consumed per kilo of liveweight, compared to one kilogram for soybean meal.
“When we converted the dry matter results to an equivalent nitrogen basis, the pulses looked better than the soybean meal, because they were generally more digestible and had a high starch content.
“When you compare the results to the control group of steers grazing only Mitchell grass, the pigeon pea supplement could also get them to live export weight out of Darwin of about 300 kilograms months earlier.”
Mungbeans were well established as a cash crop in central and North Queensland, and pigeon peas were emerging, according to Dr Quigley.
Mung beans were well established as a cash crop in central and North Queensland, and pigeon peas were emerging, according to Mr Quigley. Picture: supplied.
“The economics of these feeding strategies will depend on the cost of the grain and the price of the cattle,” he said.
“But producers need options to make an informed decision on whether and how they want to supplement their feed.
“Chickpeas are a good example, where they were worth upwards of $900 a tonne at sowing, and they have dropped as low as $500 a tonne recently.”
The research involved feeding 30 Droughtmaster steers in individual pens different amounts of pulse supplement mixed with Mitchell grass, according to fellow CQU livestock researcher Dr Amy Bates.
“The experiment was run concurrently with two others looking at other feed supplements, so we had about 90 head in total at the research precinct,” Dr Bates said.
The experiment was run concurrently with two others looking at other feed supplements, according to Dr Bates, meaning there were 90 head in the facility. Picture: supplied.
“The steers had an adaptation period of about two or three weeks before the 10-week trial.”
The Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia funded the CQU research, alongside a handful of other projects presented at TropAg.
CQU’s Dr Zillur Rahman, for example, spoke about the economic viability of growing white sesame in Northern Australia, while Dr Edward Mwando presented results on the effect of cover crops during cotton establishment.
Dr Quigley said the results of his team’s research required validation under commercial conditions to draw more conclusions about how they could be applied to different grazing systems.
Link to article: https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/9111243/north-queensland-pulses-perform-well-in-cattle-feed-in-trial/
