Nitrogen excretion from beef cattle fed a wide range of diets compiled in an intercontinental dataset: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Manure N from cattle contributes to nitrate leaching, nitrous oxide, and ammonia emissions. Measurement of manure N outputs on commercial beef cattle operations is laborious, expensive, and impractical; therefore, models are needed to predict N excreted in urine and feces. Building robust prediction models requires extensive data from animals under different management systems worldwide. Thus, the study objectives were to 1) collate an international dataset of N excretion in feces and urine based on individual observations from beef cattle; 2) determine the suitability of key variables for predicting fecal, urinary, and total manure N excretion; and 3) develop robust and reliable N excretion prediction models based on individual observation from beef cattle consuming various diets. A meta-analysis based on individual beef data from different experiments was carried out from a raw dataset including 1,004 observations from 33 experiments collected from 5 research institutes in Europe (n = 3), North America (n = 1), and South America (n = 1). A sequential approach was taken in developing models of increasing complexity by incrementally adding significant variables that affected fecal, urinary, or total manure N excretion. Nitrogen excretion was predicted by fitting linear mixed models with experiment as a random effect. Simple models including dry matter intake (DMI) were better at predicting fecal N excretion than those using only dietary nutrient composition or body weight (BW). Simple models based on N intake performed better for urinary and total manure N excretion than those based on DMI. A model including DMI and dietary component concentrations led to the most robust prediction of fecal and urinary N excretion, generating root mean square prediction errors as a percentage of the observed mean values of 25.0% for feces and 25.6% for urine. Complex total manure N excretion models based on BW and dietary component concentrations led to the lowest prediction errors of about 14.6%. In conclusion, several models to predict N excretion already exist, but the ones developed in this study are based on individual observations encompassing larger variability than the previous developed models. In addition, models that include information on DMI or N intake are required for accurate prediction of fecal, urinary, and total manure N excretion. In the absence of intake data, equations have poor performance as compared with equations based on intake and dietary component concentrations.