1. Types of Dairy Feeding Systems:
   • Conserved Forages: Most U.S. dairy herds rely on conserved forages like silage, baleage, and hay.
   • Grazing: Some herds use grazing to reduce feed costs, increase profit margins, or meet specific milk market requirements. Grazing systems can apply to different categories of dairy animals, such as dry cows, late lactation cows, or heifers.
2. Grazing Management Challenges:
   • Grazing systems require quick adaptation to changing environments (e.g., weather, soil, and forage conditions).
   • Lower milk production levels characterize grazing systems compared to confinement systems, but they focus on high milk production per acre at a reduced cost.
3. Key Factors for Successful Grazing Systems:
   • Providing high-quality forage in sufficient quantities to ensure adequate dry matter and nutrient intake is crucial for milk production.
   • Important nutritional influences on milk yield from pasture include high-quality forage, the amount of pasture allocated per cow, effective pasture management, and quality supplemental feed.
4. Pasture Management Techniques:
   • Continuous Grazing: Allows cows to access the entire pasture continuously, leading to selective grazing, overgrazing, decreased forage yield, increased weed issues, uneven nutrient deposition, and decreased milk yield.
   • Rotational Grazing: Divides large pastures into smaller areas to graze intensively for short periods before moving cows, allowing pasture to rest and regrow. This method improves pasture productivity and longevity and requires more fencing and labor than continuous grazing but less than confinement systems.
5. Advantages of Rotational Grazing Over Continuous Grazing:
   • Better forage use and higher forage quality due to controlled grazing and the ability to harvest forages as silage or hay if they mature too much for grazing.
   • Controlled forage height at removal to maintain plant health and productivity.
6. Confinement Systems:
   • Provide the ability to control cows’ diets and maximize milk production. However, they require higher fuel, labor, time, and infrastructure investments, along with greater manure management requirements and potential soil erosion issues.
7. Factors Influencing Feeding Management Decisions:
   • Feeding management in dairy herds depends on the farm’s resources, skills, business plans, milk markets, and owner preferences. Some producers prefer grazing to reduce costs or leverage niche markets (e.g., grass-fed or organic milk).
8. Pasture Management and Regrowth:
   • Effective pasture management involves timely forage harvesting, avoiding overgrazing, and allowing adequate rest periods for regrowth. Overgrazing reduces energy reserves in forage plants and decreases their root mass and resilience, impacting forage productivity and pasture capacity.
9. Root System Health and Grazing Management:
   • The text provides an example to illustrate the impact of different grazing intensities on plant root systems, showing that overgrazing weakens plants, reduces root depth and mass, and diminishes drought resistance.

Key Takeaways:

• Rotational Grazing offers a balance between controlling feed costs and managing pasture quality, requiring specific knowledge and experience.
• Confinement Systems maximize milk production but come with higher operational costs and management challenges.
• Successful pasture management in grazing systems requires understanding forage growth patterns, optimizing grazing periods, and maintaining adequate forage and nutrient availability for livestock.