WSU Dairy Research Helping Industry Be More Efficient

Dairy Researchers at Washington State University are working on making the diets of cows more efficient and beneficial to quality and yield.

Dr. Joe Harrison, a Professor with the Department of Animal Science, said they’ve been able to make some discoveries on microbial pathways.

“We found that if we feed certain levels of potassium, that actually promotes a preferred pathway by the bacteria in the rumen and that results in higher fat production.”

Potassium can also help with milk fat depression in dairy cows.

Harrison said this kind of research is critical to the industry because the largest cost in producing milk is feeding.

“Anything we can do to lessen the expense of that or allow the cow to produce more efficiently, get more milk out of the same amount of pounds of feed per day, the better chance it’s going to leave a dairy producer to be profitable.”

Harrison is worried however that regulations such as the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permit are making things too challenging for dairy producers.

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