Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

A. Minutes a. Monday, October 20th i. Remembrance of Brian Bequette ii. Remarks by administrative advisor, David Benfield 1. Multistate projects are not restricted to US membership; we may want to invite Canadians especially 2. Farm Bill authorized $25 m in funding for animal research, but funding has not yet been allocated 3. NIFA has allocated large funds towards plant science and water research 4. We may wish to be nominated for an Experiment Station Section Award for Excellence in Multistate Research ($15 K) 5. Minimum requirement for project membership is submission of annual report, not meeting attendance, but committee can set additional criteria a. In 2012, committee had decided that members absent over 2 consecutive years should be removed b. Members absent since 2012 will be removed iii. USDA update via conference call from Dr. Steve Smith 1. Personnel update a. New division director (Parag Chitnis) b. New National Program Leader for Aquaculture c. Vacancy for Program Manager in Animal Protection/Agrosecurity 2. NIFA budget for fiscal year 2015 a. AFRI budget anticipated to increase from $316 m to $325 m, but sequestration may decrease anticipated budget by 7 to 8% b. No major changes in Hatch funds or other programs c. President’s budget allocated $80 m for Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative (some of which could have been used for animal research), but allocation removed in house and senate committee budgets 3. Competitive programs a. Foundational Program FY 2015 RFA should be released in Oct to Nov 2014 b. RFAs should be released on a more predictable and shorter (<1 yr) cycle c. Exploratory program (introduced in 2014) is for high-risk, high-reward ideas that do not panel well d. Climate Variability and Change was skipped in 2014, but it is still considered high priority and has not been deleted from programs to be funded in future iv. NRC Discussion 1. Rich Erdman (chair), overview a. Next edition should be released in 2016 b. Budget is $400 K (for staff time and travel expenses) i. ADSA foundation provided $200 K seed funds ii. 11 industry partners provided $19 K each iii. 2 staff members are co-chairing project along with an assistant and consultant (4 staff in total) c. Committee members i. Selected from 80 nominations ii. List: Allen, Michael; Armantano, Louis; Erdman, Richard (chair); Firkins, Jeffrey; Hall, Mary Beth; Hanigan, Mark; Hristov, Alex; Kononoff, Paul; Lapierre, Hélène; Santos, Jose; Van Amburgh, Michael; VandeHaar, Michael; Weiss, William (vice-chair) d. Chapter assignments already made e. Meetings: Sept 2014, Mar 2015, Jul 2015, Oct 2015 f. Draft for review will be sent out in early 2016, revised, and reviewed by National Academies Press, and final publication sometime in 2016 2. James Fadel (presented in absentia by Ermias Kebreab) a. Should the NRC (2016) be an evaluator (to determine if proposed ration meets requirements) or optimizer (to formulate least-cost rations)? b. Optimizer would be useful for producers and researchers c. Committee discussion: We should be cautious in developing NRC optimizer because 1) CNCPS, not NRC, is most heavily used by commercial nutritionists, 2) least-cost rations, if incorrect, would turn users off to 2016 and future editions of NRC d. Sensitivity analysis should be done because many input variables have low sensitivity i. Examples: rate of passage and digestion, amino acid composition ii. Variables that are insensitive should be removed from the model, but biologically important ones should still be discussed in the text iii. Mineral discussion should propose mineral mixes, as these mixes are used by producers (at least in CA) e. Barry Bradford (presented in absentia) i. Nutrient requirements should include an estimate of variance to reflect variation amongst animals in a herd f. Mike VandeHaar i. Comments on prediction of energy 1. User should have option of making NDFD as a user input, as lignin/NDF ratio is sometimes unreliable 2. Discount factor for DE with increasing intake (multiples of maintenance) is flawed and should be updated with more recent datasets 3. Efficiency of DE use for ME and ME use for NE were not changed between NRC (1989) and NRC (2001), except for FA ii. Comments on prediction of MP 1. Several aspects require re-examination a. Contribution of N recycling to microbial protein b. Digestibility of microbial true N (80% in NRC [2001]) c. Size of endogenous N (4.75 g/kg DMI in NRC [2001]) d. Intestinal digestibility of fraction C protein 2. kd and kp may be removed from model a. Animal responses are insensitive to values b. Fixed values of RDP/RUP could be used instead c. Committee discussion: they may still be biologically important iii. Comments on prediction of DMI 1. Predicted DMI should be a starting point for formulating diets, and actual DMI may often be known 2. All functions that require energy should affect DMI, but currently DMI is affected only BW and milk, not body reserves, growth, pregnancy, or work 3. Empirical factors for adjusting DMI were proposed, such as diet NDF or dietary ingredients g. Kevin Harvantine i. Suggestions for improving fat section 1. Generate feed library of FA profiles 2. Committee discussion: Change from EE to FA system? 3. Discuss factors affecting rumen biohydrogenation (though exclude from model due to difficulty in mathematical representation) 4. Represent digestibility of fat a. By source b. By fatty acids c. Other factors 5. Define omega-3 FA requirement a. Calculate metabolic need in milk, gain, sloughed cells b. Summarize duodenal flow and calculate balance c. Summarize transfer efficiency of different FA into milk (to improve prediction of milk FA) ii. Rumination 1. Define requirement or goal for rumination time 2. Describe variation in rumination and time to change 3. Exploit data from rumination monitors that increasingly are being used h. Tim Hackmann i. Microbial protein flow predicted poorly in NRC (2001) ii. Underlying problem is assumption of (nearly) constant microbial efficiency iii. Empirical equations predict microbial efficiency poorly iv. Mechanistic model have greater potential for representing variation in efficiency v. Committee discussion 1. Not enough data to parameterize a mechanistic model, though elements of a future model may be discussed in text 2. Microbial flow should be predicted with TTDOM or TDN as in NRC (2001) or DMI v. Station reports 1. Rich Erdman, University of Maryland b. Tuesday, October 21st i. Election of new officers for 2014-5 1. Secretary: Agustin Rius 2. Chair: Timothy Hackmann ii. Next year’s meeting 1. Time: Oct 19th to 20th 2. Venue: Holliday Inn, 5615 N. Cumberland Avenue Chicago, Illinois 60631 3. Possible statics workshop a. Brief introduction to R b. Application of R or SAS to meta-analysis, emphasizing adjustment for study effect c. Presented by student from lab of Mark Hanigan or Ermias Kebreab iii. Station reports 1. Kevin Harvatine, Pennsylvania State University 2. Timothy Hackmann, University of Florida 3. Mark Hanigan, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 4. Michael VandeHaar, Michigan State University