Replacing dietary soybean meal with canola meal improves production and efficiency of lactating dairy cows1

Previous research suggested that crude protein (CP) from canola meal (CM) was used more efficiently than CP from solvent soybean meal (SBM) by lactating dairy cows. We tested whether dietary CP content influenced relative effectiveness of equal supplemental CP from either CM or SBM. Fifty lactating Holstein cows were blocked by parity and days in milk into 10 squares (2 squares with ruminal cannulas) in a replicated 5 × 5 Latin square trial. Five squares were fed: (1) low (14.5-14.8%) CP with SBM, (2) low CP with CM, (3) low CP with SBM plus CM, (4) high (16.4-16.7%) CP with SBM, and (5) high CP with CM; the other 5 squares were fed the same diets except with rumen-protected Met plus Lys (RPML) added as Mepron (Degussa Corp., Kennesaw, GA) and AminoShure-L (Balchem Corp., New Hampton, NY), which were assumed to provide 8 g/d of absorbed dl-Met and 12 g/d of absorbed l-Lys. Diets contained [dry matter (DM) basis] 40% corn silage, 26% alfalfa silage, 14 to 23% corn grain, 2.4% mineral-vitamin premixes, and 29 to 33% neutral detergent fiber. Periods were 3 wk (total 15 wk), and data from the last week of each period were analyzed using the Mixed procedures of SAS (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). The only effects of RPML were increased DM intake and milk urea N (MUN) and urinary N excretion and trends for decreased milk lactose and solids-not-fat concentrations and milk-N:N intake; no significant RPML × protein source interactions were detected. Higher dietary CP increased milk fat yield and tended to increase milk yield but also elevated MUN, urine volume, urinary N excretion, ruminal concentrations of ammonia and branched-chain volatile fatty acids (VFA), lowered milk lactose concentration and milk-N:N intake, and had no effect on milk true protein yield. Feeding CM instead of SBM increased feed intake, yields of milk, energy-corrected milk, and true protein, and milk-N:N intake, tended to increase fat and lactose yields, and reduced MUN, urine volume, and urinary N excretion. At low CP, MUN was lower and intake tended to be greater on SBM plus CM versus SBM alone, but MUN and N excretion were not reduced to the same degree as on CM alone. Interactions of parity × protein source and parity × CP concentration indicated that primiparous cows were more responsive than multiparous cows to improved supply of metabolizable protein. Replacing SBM with CM reduced ruminal ammonia and branched-chain VFA concentrations, indicating lower ruminal degradation of CM protein. Replacing SBM with CM improved milk and protein yield and N-utilization in lactating cows fed both low- and high-CP diets.