Herds On The Virginia Phosphorus Feeding Incentive Program Ending Their Second Year

Dairy Pipeline: October 2008

Charlie Stallings Extension ,Dairy Scientist, Nutrition & Forage Quality
(540) 231-3066; cstallin@vt.edu

Selected Virginia dairy farms started testing their feeds and receiving information on phosphorus feeding in 2006 and 60 farms have now completed the second year of the project. These 60 have submitted enough samples (minimum 5 per year for year two) and have now received their summary information and payment eligibility if they were feeding within 125% of their herd’s requirement. To date, participating herds have qualified for more than $90,000 in incentive payments.

Some lessons learned from the project:

• Nutritionists and dairymen are not hesitant to remove inorganic sources of phosphorus from rations,
• High corn prices appear to have increased the use of high phosphorus by-product feeds in 2008,
• Forages and pastures do not always have low levels of phosphorus, and
• Ration modification to select low phosphorus feeds is not typically done because of price relationships.

This project continues for a total of three years with the third year being one of feed testing and phosphorus intake calculation but no incentive payments. More herds will be completing their second year in the next few months. We hope to further study the economics of reducing phosphorus levels considering such things as phosphorus based nutrient management plans, phosphorus availability in feeds, and availability of ethanol by-products (distillers grains).

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