Graduate Student Competition: National ADSA Dairy Production.

The article presents abstracts of various research papers related to animal science that were presented during the symposium held on July 25, 2005 in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was organized by the American Dairy Science Association, the American Society of Animal Science, and the Canadian Society of Animal Science. One of the papers titled "Processing Barley Grain for Midlactation Dairy Cows: Steam-Rolling Versus Grinding," states that economical constraints of replacing conventional grinding with complex steam-processing equipment have faced the dairy industries with a major challenge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the rumen conditions and productivity of dairy cows fed differently processed barley grains. Eight multiparous Holstein cows in their midlactation were used in a double 4 x 4 Latin square design with four 21-d periods. Processing index (Pt), or the ratio of the processed barley grain density to the whole barley grain density expressed as %, was used to measure the processing extent of the rolled grains. Barley grain was included as 25.6% of dietary dry matter. Treatments included 4 total mixed rations containing, ground, steam-rolled, finely dry-rolled and coarsely dry-rolled barley grains.