The Microbial Nitrogen Cycling, Bacterial Community Composition, and Functional Potential in a Natural Grassland Are Stable from Breaking Dormancy to Being Dormant Again.

The quantity of grass-root exudates varies by season, suggesting temporal shifts in soil microbial community composition and activity across a growing season. We hypothesized that bacterial community and nitrogen cycle-associated prokaryotic gene expressions shift across three phases of the growing season. To test this hypothesis, we quantified gene and transcript copy number of nitrogen fixation (nifH), ammonia oxidation (amoA, hao, nxrB), denitrification (narG, napA, nirK, nirS, norB, nosZ), dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonia (nrfA), and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (hzs, hdh) using the pre-optimized Nitrogen Cycle Evaluation (NiCE) chip.

Impact of feeding cover crop forage containing brassicas to steers during backgrounding on live animal performance, carcass characteristics, and meat color.

Brassica cover crops are an option for producers to incorporate into their cropping system to improve soil health and also provide a feed resource for cattle. While brassica cover crops have been widely used for grazing cows, their use as a backgrounding feedstuff is relatively unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of feeding a brassica cover crop mixture during backgrounding on live animal performance and carcass characteristics.

Impact of Feeding Cover Crop Forage Containing Brassicas to Steers during Backgrounding on Palatability Attributes of Beef Strip Steaks.

Brassica cover crops have been widely used for improving soil health and as a feed resource for grazing cows, but their use in backgrounding diets is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of feeding a brassica cover crop mixture during backgrounding on beef palatability. Thirty steers were assigned to one of two dietary treatments during backgrounding with (1) ad libitum access to freshly cut brassica cover crop forage (CC) containing radish, turnip, rapeseed, and rye grass, or (2) common Midwestern dry lot backgrounding diet (CON).

What is the digestibility and caloric value of different botanical parts in corn residue to cattle?1.

Two experiments were conducted to measure rates of ruminal disappearance, and energy and nutrient availability and N balance among cows fed corn husks, leaves, or stalks. Ruminal disappearance was estimated after incubation of polyester bags containing husks, leaves or stalks in 2 separate ruminally cannulated cows in a completely randomized design. Organic matter (OM) that initially disappeared was greatest for stalks and least for husks and leaves (P < 0.

Estimates of diet selection in cattle grazing cornstalk residues by measurement of chemical composition and near infrared reflectance spectroscopy of diet samples collected by ruminal evacuation.

Six ruminally cannulated cows (570 ± 73 kg) fed corn residues were placed in a 6 × 6 Latin square to evaluate predictions of diet composition from ruminally collected diet samples. After complete ruminal evacuation, cows were fed 1-kg meals (dry matter [DM]-basis) containing different combinations of cornstalk and leaf and husk (LH) residues in ratios of 0:100, 20:80, 40:60, 60:40, 80:20, and 100:0. Diet samples from each meal were collected by removal of ruminal contents after 1-h and were either unrinsed, hand-rinsed or machine-rinsed to evaluate effects of endogenous compounds on predictions of diet composition.

Is the commonly told story of Lister's antisepsis a whiggish one?

Joseph Lister is often seen as a hero of surgery, but his famous method of antisepsis was not solely his work alone. The commonly told account of the development of antisepsis displays several characteristics of whig history. This investigation will highlight these whiggish features, showing that Lister's original antiseptic technique was not without its failures and that there were other important figures who contributed to its development.