A cattle producer that buys calves that are younger than six months to the herd should have a starter stable to prevent infection spreading in the herd. According to the Swedish animal welfare regulation there has to be a starter stable if more than 50 calves that are younger than four months are bought in yearly to the herd. The aim of the study was to improve the knowledge about bovine buildings and management of starter stables to obtain optimal weight gain and health of the calves. The hypothesis 1) The younger the calves are when purchased, the higher the calf mortality and 2) Purchasing calves from a high number of herds involves a higher risk of calf health problems and calf mortality were tested in the study. The objective of the study was to give advices by way of presenting ideal solutions of how a starter stable should be constructed and managed. A field study was done during June to September 2008 to collect knowledge and experience from existing starter stables.

Feed intake in dairy cows is regulated by a variety of factors influencing hunger and satiety. One of the regulation systems includes the short chain fatty acids produced during feed degradation in the rumen. Starch can be digested either in the rumen where short chain fatty acids are produced or in the small intestine where glucose is the end product. Since glucose does not have the same effect on satiety that short chain fatty acids have, the site of starch digestion might be an important factor that affects feed intake and milk production. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of site of starch digestion on feeding behaviour (feed intake, consumption time, and eating frequency) and milk production. Because feeding behaviour is closely connected to the cows? environment, the study also included observations of behaviour. Three different feed rations were compared.

This literature review examines different forages which are well suited for suckle cow production in Sweden today. They should also be possible to cultivate in Sweden under the current circumstances. Crops suitable for grazing in Swedish climate but not used in Sweden today, but which may be relevant for Swedish conditions are also mentioned. In Sweden today, mainly grass silage, straw and hay are used as forage, but also wholecrop silage is used to some extent. However, concentrates are not used to a greater extent, since it contains too much energy.

Tritordeum is the result of a cross between a wild Barley (Hordeum chilense) and durum wheat (Triticum turgidum). Tritordeum have high viscosity and a nice yellow colour. The objective of this thesis was to evaluate Tritordeum lines HT 354, HT 361, HT 437, HT 2218 (JB3) and HT 1608 (JB1) for use as a new raw material within the food industry. Analyses made were on dietary fibre, fructan, ash, water content and colour. Compilation of data from analyses made for Agrasys an Agri-Food company in Barcelona having the commercial rights to Tritordeum, included Lutein and rheological properties.

The production of oilseed rape is an important issue in Sweden and those who never have grown oilseed rape (OSR) are now willing to try. It is always a risk to grow oilseed rape, specially winter OSR, because of outwintering. This risk increases as you go north and therefore establishment and autumn growth is very important. These are some of the reasons that I have chosen to write about the establishment of winter oilseed rape in Middle Sweden. There are many factors that influence the outcome of the establishment, e. g.

Abstract In order to make the modern agriculture less dependent on non-renewable external inputs, it has to rely more on ecosystem services. The agricultural system produce not only food, fiber and fuel, it also generates other ecosystem services such as e.g. photosynthesis, recycling of nutrients, influencing local microclimate, pollination, biological control and detoxification of noxious chemicals. This study is an attempt to get a better understanding about the interaction among different ecosystem services and different habitats capacity to generate them. An evaluation of eight different methods is done. The ecosystem services studied are the ability to absorb solar energy, biomass production, botanical diversity, decomposition and natural predation of aphids.

The last decades the populations of wild boar (Sus scrofa) has increased rapidly over the species? entire European range, including Sweden. This is followed by increasing human-wildlife conflicts as a result of the wild boar foraging behavior, causing damage to agricultural crop fields due to trampling and feeding. To be able to minimize damage we need more knowledge of where in the fields the risk of damage is high and what features in the landscape that affect this risk. I analyzed damage distribution in relation to the distance to six different landscape features; forest, road, ditch, building, game field and bait station, in the study area, the Island Mörkö in eastern central Sweden.

The Kverneland Ecomat and The Ecomat Seeder has been tested in three different field studies. All the studies were conducted on soils with different clay content during 2005 in Säby outside Uppsala. In one of the trial spring ploughing with the Ecomat and spring ploughing and seeding with Ecomat Seeder were compared with conventional autumn mouldboard ploughing and spring mouldboard ploughing to conventional depth (22-23 cm). In this study the quality of the seedbed, the number of emerged plants and weeds, the pentration resistance and the yield were examined. Shallow spring ploughing (10 cm) with the Kverneland Ecomat has shown to be a good alternative to conventional autumn ploughing when growing spring crops. During the season 2005 tilling with the Ecomat resulted in a higher yield than conventional ploughing. In 2002-2005 the average yield for shallow spring ploughing was 4 percent higher than after conventional autumn mouldboard ploughing and 10 percent higher than after spring mouldboard ploughing to conventional depth (22-23 cm). In the other two studies, ploughing to different depth in the autumn with the Ecomat was compared with conventional mouldboard ploughing and stubble discing.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the stir drying method, for drying of grain during Swedish conditions. The evaluation was done during the harvest year 2004, on four farms with stir driers. The driers were evaluated for their energy consumption, design, stirring effectiveness and how much time the farmer has to spend on every tonne of grain. A comparison was also done with conventional Swedish high temperature driers. Totaly six batches of grain from stir driers were examined, mostly winter wheat, but also Barley and wheat.

By using pollen analysis and 14C-dating, the history of vegetation and land use at the old shieling place (Sw: fäbodställe) Öjingsvallen in Ängersjö parish, central Sweden, was studied. The aim of the study was to answer the following questions: 1) When was Öjingsvallen established as a shieling place? 2) What was the land use at Öjingsvallen? 3) Was the use of Öjingsvallen as a shieling place affected by the agricultural crisis in the 14th and 15th centuries? 4) Is there any relation between the establishment and land use of Öjingsvallen as a shieling place and the historically known increase in the number of shieling sites known to have taken place in the 16th and 17th centuries? 5) Was the use of Öjingsvallen as a shieling place affected by the iron production in the area? According to the study, Öjingsvallen was probably established as a shieling place during the period A.D. 300-700. The main land use at this time was forest grazing.

We have been looking at three different types of agriculture in Södermanland, in the middle east of Sweden. We call the different types for Intensive, Extensive and Mix. The purpose is to get an economic defensible plan for how to run different farm sizes. We also have been looking at the working hours and how many hours the different types will give. We have a farm called Taxinge Gods as our pilot farm. Taxinge Gods grow 407 ha land and is located 60 km southwest from Stockholm.

Corn is an important food and feed crop in the world, in Sweden it?s up till now grown on limited acreages mainly for silage. But I think it can get more important if you can grow it also for grain, because it?s a good animal feed for example, for life stock-, pigsand poultry. On of corns advantage is that it can produce the same amount of dry matter as for example wheat, Barley and rise but with 25% less water. I will examine if it possible to grow corn for grain production in the south of Sweden.

This study consists of a literature study and a survey in Tamil Nadu, India. The aim of the study was to get an understanding of horse feeding in tropical climates and what kind of feeding related problems that could occur because of the fodder. Information and data were collected from eight different stables and from Tamil Nadu University of Agriculture in the region of Tamil Nadu in March-April 2009. The horses in Tamil Nadu were given rice straw, unknown grass, Cynodon dactylon, lucerne, maize, Pennisetum glaucum x Pennisetum purpureum hybrid and Chloris gayana as roughage. As concentrates, the horses were given wheat bran, oats, Barley, soybean meal, maize, carrots, coconut cake, peanut cake, horse gram and chick pea.

Rapid population growth and the fact that phosphorous is a limited resource implies that the question regarding an efficient use of phosphorus is of great importance, and consequently,that the phosphorous use efficiency should be as high as possible. The view on phosphorous use efficiency, and how this is calculated, has varied over time. This has had great implications on what type of research that has been conducted, which have resulted in an inconsistency between the academic?s view on the subject and recommendations received by farmers. The purpose of this paper is to calculate the phosphorus use efficiency in the Swedish long term fertility experiments.

In Sweden, reduced tillage usually means non-inversion tillage, where primary tillage is carried out using chisel ploughs or disc implements. Primary tillage method is mainly determined by the desired soil loosening and the handling of soil residues. The effect of tillage depth was studied in field experiments in Skåne, Väderstad, Uppsala, Örebro och Västerås in different crops; spring oilseed rape, spring wheat, winter wheat and spring Barley.The experiments generally had a randomized block design with the treatments mouldboard ploughing, deep chisel ploughing and shallow chisel ploughing, in some cases also shallow discing and no-tillage. In the experiments the following parameters were determined: seedbed properties, saturated hydraulic conductivity, penetration resistance, number of emerged plants and crop yield (all parameters were not determined in all experiments. Root growth and draught requirement were determined in two separate studies. There were no significant differences between tillage depths in non-inversion tillage in seedbed properties, plant emergence or root development.