Impact of dietary forage proportion and crossbreeding on feed efficiency and methane emissions in lactating dairy cows

Increasing forage proportion (FP) in the diets of dairy cows would reduce competition for human edible foods and reduce feed costs, particularly in low-input systems. However, increasing FP reduces productivity and may increases methane (CH₄) emission parameters. This work aimed to investigate the impact of FP and breed on feed efficiency and CH₄ emission parameters. Data from 32 individual experiments conducted at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute between 1992 and 2010 were utilised in this study resulting in data from 796 Holstein-Friesian (HF), 50 Norwegian Red (NR), 46 Jersey × HF (J × HF) and 16 NR × HF cows. Diets consisted of varying proportions of forage and concentrate dependent on the experimental protocols of each experiment. A linear mixed model was used to investigate the effect of low (LFP; 10% to 30%), medium (MFP; 30% to 59%), high (HFP; 60% to 87%) and pure (FOR; 100%) FP (dry matter [DM] basis) and breed on feed efficiency, and CH₄ emission parameters and multivariate redundancy analysis identified associations between animal and dietary drivers on the same variables. Total dry matter intake (DMI) was higher for cows offered LFP (17.3 kg/d) and MFP (17.9 kg/d) compared to HFP (15.3 kg/d) and FOR (13.8 kg/d) (<i>P</i> < 0.001). Milk yield (<i>P</i> < 0.001), milk yield/DMI (<i>P</i> < 0.001), energy corrected milk (ECM)/DMI (<i>P</i> < 0.001) and milk energy/DMI (<i>P</i> < 0.001) were higher for LFP and MFP compared to HFP and FOR. Methane/DMI was higher for HFP (24.3 g/kg) compared to MFP (22.4 g/kg) (<i>P</i> < 0.001). Methane/milk yield (<i>P</i> < 0.001) or CH₄/ECM (<i>P</i> < 0.001) was higher for HFP (22.5 or 21.6 g/kg) and FOR (27.0 or 25.8 g/kg) compared to MFP (19.1 or 17.9 g/kg). There were no differences between LFP and MFP or between HFP and FOR for milk yield, milk yield/DMI, ECM/DMI, milk energy/DMI, CH₄/milk yield and CH₄/ECM (<i>P</i> > 0.05). Differences existed between breeds for residual feed intake (<i>P</i> = 0.040), milk yield/DMI (<i>P</i> = 0.041) and CH₄/DMI (<i>P</i> = 0.048) with multivariate redundancy analysis demonstrating negative correlations with efficiency and positive correlations with CH₄/DMI and CH₄/milk yield. Feeding concentrates at 70% to 90% of DMI (LFP group) would not result in any further benefits for productivity, feed efficiency or CH₄ yield and intensity when compared to feeding 41% to 70% concentrates of DMI (MFP group). There may be opportunity to improve profitability for lower intensity farms with less concentrate input.