The James Hutton Institute
This page is no longer updated. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute joined forces with SCRI on 1 April 2011 to create The James Hutton Institute.
The James Hutton InstituteThis page is no longer updated. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute joined forces with SCRI on 1 April 2011 to create The James Hutton Institute.
There is a huge diversity of livestock systems in marginal areas, producing milk, meat, wool and hides from a staggering number of breeds of cattle, sheep and goats. Those systems all, however, rely to a large extent on pasture resources to supply most of the feed. Because of the seasonality of pasture growth both the quantity and quality of herbage available cam limit the level of nutrition to livestock in marginal areas. In northern Europe pasture production ceases in winter due to low temperatures, while in southern Europe high temperature and lack of rainfall limits pasture growth in summer. Variability of rainfall between years is also a major problem in Mediterranean areas. In many marginal areas soil conditions are such as to limit the supply of nutrients to plants. In winter in northern Europe and in summer in southern Europe the nutritive value of herbage available ( in terms of energy and protein) is generally very low and often insufficient to maintain animals. Often animals have to browse shrubs, which tend to have a low digestibility and a low protein content. In addition many contain secondary plant compounds such as tannins which impair digestion. The low levels of nutrition generally limit the physiological processes of reproduction, lactation and growth, well below the potential achievable by the animals. Management systems have developed which try to overcome some of these difficulties. For example, the annual reproductive cycle in breeding animals is usually manipulated to ensure the time of maximum feed requirements coincided with maximum pasture production, and supplementary feeding can be provided to increase the level of nutrition to animals. Nevertheless the levels of animal performance and total output from livestock systems in the marginal areas of Europe fall considerably below that of comparable systems in more favoured areas.