The New York Organic Dairy Program (NYODP) collaborated with researchers from four other Northeastern States on a five year USDA OREI Grant. The project ended in 2016 and the work has resulted in two research papers recently published in the “Journal of Dairy Science”. The papers describe work done on organic dairy farms from each of the five states including one farm from Tompkins County, NY and another from Cortland County, NY. Our research team was interested in the quality of pasture during the grazing season on these farms as well as the feeding of flax meal to dairy cows during the winter months. The first paper describes how the quality and quantity of the pasture leads to higher Omega-3 in the milk. The second paper describes an experiment in which the herds were divided in two groups with one half receiving a ration balanced with corn and soybeans and the other half ration balanced with flax meal. The milk from each group was then tested for the types and amount of the two fatty acids.
Links to both papers can be found below:
