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.

There are various arguments for using total mixed rations (TMR) or not. Cows can easily become fat and thus poorly utilize the feed while it can be stated that TMR also has a positive effect on cows? health and wellbeing as the rumen environment is more constant than when separate feeding is applied. Studies do show that that especially low yielding cows kept in groups get fatter when fed TMR. The overfeeding implicates higher feeding costs. This study included 10 herds where 5 had TMR and 5 hade separate feeding of forage and concentrates.

Lyckeby Starch AB is a farmer-owned company that produces products based on potato starch. In order to increase their production efficiency and their international competitiveness the company is investigating the possibilities of keeping their factories open longer. To achieve this, potato has to be stored for a longer period of time than what is practiced today. Starch potato is usually stored in large piles covered by straw and plastic, either in the field or on the farmyard. The objective was to examine in what way starch yield (starch content*tuber weight) in three different potato varieties was affected by storage in two different types of storage piles. The potato was stored for three months in total and starch content and tuber weight were controlled throughout the period. Stored tubers were also visually examined and prescense of mechanical damage as well as wet rots and dry rots was recorded. Bacteria and fungi were isolated and identified. In general, varietal differences were greater than differences between the storage piles.

The production of cheese is in continuous development with objectives to in-crease productivity, achieve changes in shelf life and functional properties of the products. One concept in the development is to substitute milk fat with vegetable fats and oils in the manufacture of cheese. The objective of this study was to investigate effects on cheese yield and cheese quality of 4 different semi-hard analogue cheese products produced by substituting milk fat with vegetable fat, each analogue cheese with a specific mixture of vegeta-ble fat. As reference a cheese produced with anhydrous milk fat was used. The yield and recovery of fat and protein were determined by recording the weights of each cheese direct after press and after 20±2 days of storage and analysis of the composition of the cheeses after 20±2 days of storage. The cheese was fur-ther subjected for texture profile analysis in a TA-XT Plus Texture Analyser and analysed with Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to examine whether the fat behaves similar in the cheese as in pure form in respect to its thermal properties. The cheese yield was not significantly different when using different fats. Differ-ent amounts of water were absorbed during the water cooling.

The measuring of logs is important in the sawmills process to the sawn products. The technology of automatic wood measurement is continuance developing. This study has the purpose to see how the different techniques and the routines works of measure frames for determining of wood value and sorting in sawmills. The study is performed as a literature study and a survey. The survey includes some of the Swedish sawmills that produce more than 10 000 cubic meters sawed products per year.

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.

Automatic milking systems (AMS) provide the opportunity for less manual labour and an increased milking frequency. But in order to reach an optimal milking frequency a well-functioning cow traffic is crucial. There are many factors affecting cow traffic but one factor that has not been studied thoroughly yet is the effect of different light intensities during the night, 22.00 h to 05.00 h. Therefore the aim of this study was to determine the effect of different light intensities during the night on number of selection gate passages (GP), milking frequency and milk yield. The study was conducted as a Latin square were three light intensities were applied: LOW (11 ± 3 lux), INT (33 ± 1 lux) and HIGH (74 ± 6 lux), in three different herds.

Swedish goats are mainly held for cheese production and therefore, both milk quality and composition are of great importance for dairymen. Today, only few data exists on milk composition from Swedish dairy goats and the casein content is still unknown. One way to reduce the work load for goat farmers and increase animal welfare can be to keep goats and kids together for longer periods. The aims of this study were to investigate how milk yield and composition were affected when kids suckled their dams during 8 weeks, and to measure the casein content on farm level by a mid-infrared spectroscopy method, previously calibrated for goat milk. Lactating goats were kept in two different MIX- systems where the dams are both suckled and milked.

Heifer?s growth may be divided into three main phases: calf period, puberty and pregnancy. When the heifers are about three months old a critical period begins. This period ends when the heifer reach puberty and have her first oestrus at around 9-12 months of age. In the critical period the mammary gland starts to grow at a fast rate and Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) transport the growth signals to the mammary glands.

When facing the fact that high yielding dairy cows has an increasing energy requirements, the practice of adding lipid supplements such as concentrates rich in palm oil and/or palm oil industry by-products become more common. Palm oil containing high levels of C16:0 causes high levels of free fatty acids (FFA) which are linked to larger milk fat globules (MFG) which affect the reaction of lipolysis resulting in rancid flavour and processing problems. Instead of using palm oil, rapeseed oil rich in C18:1 C18:2 can be used. In order to evaluate the effect of added C18:0 and C16:0 on milk lipolysis, 30 Swedish Red lactating dairy cows including 15 multiparous (MP) and 15 primiparous (PP) cows were randomly divided in three groups resulting in 3 10 cow-groups (5 PP and 5 MP cows per group) and fed one out of three concentrate mixtures: control (C), a standard concentrate mixture with no fat added; palmitate (P) as C plus the addition of palmitate methyl ester (10 % in DM basis); and stearate (St) as C plus the addition of stearate methyl ester (10 % in DM basis). Milk yield was registered, and milk samples were collected and analysed for milk composition, FFA content and size of MFG.

The aim of the study was to investigate if the Grazemore Decision Support System (DSS) is able to provide a grazing management strategy that gives a high utilisation of grazed grass in milk production in the north of Scandinavia. To do this, a grazing experiment was planed and performed during the summer 2005. Simulations in the DSS were run to get a suggestion of how the cows should graze, grazing calendar 1. Deviations and updates during the season resulted in the simulated grazing calendar 2. During the experiment, the actual milk yield was recorded twice weekly. The difference between actual and predicted milk yield by Grazemore DSS was analysed statistically with regression analysis and the mean square prediction error (MSPE) was estimated.

Using the Introductory Carbon Balance Model, ICBM, five different crop rotations with rye 1. Rye-Ley-Ley-Rye-Beans-Rye 2. Rye-Rye-Rapeseed-Rapeseed 3. Rye-Ley-Ley-Rye-Potatoes-Rye 4. Rye-Rye-Potatoes-Wheat 5. Rye-Rye-Potatoes-Beans-Wheat-Rye-Potatoes-Rapeseed were tested theoretically in four different cultivation scenarios ? Straw left on the field, biogas digestate added as fertilizer. Labelled ?+straw+BD?. ? Straw left on the field, only synthetic fertilizer. Labelled ?+straw-BD?. ? Straw harvested, biogas digestate added as fertilizer.

Swedish agriculture has gone through big changes in the latest 60 years. The farm sizes have increased, which has led to raised tractor and machinery sizes and therefore increasing problems with soil compaction. A method to reduce these problems is to implement controlled traffic farming, CTF. All field operations are then concentrated to specific tracks by using GPS guidance. The aim of this work was to study how the tillage regime, with or without CTF, affects the soil, with the main focus on macroporosity. In Säby close to Uppsala, and Alnarp close to Malmö, randomized block trials has been carried out, and the data has mainly been taken from these trials.

Today's society is facing major challenges. In order to reduce the climate impact fossil fuels should be replaced with fuels that do not contribute to the greenhouse effect. The growing population generates organic waste originating from industry and households so called organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW). Through anaerobic digestion, waste can be utilized to produce energy-rich methane gas. In this way, waste can be a resource instead of a burden on society.

Agriculture has to be performed in a sustainable way in order to sustain high yields and to support a globally growing population. Functional soil properties are fundamental for high yields and in order to achieve good soil conditions sustainable management is a key. Loss of soil organic material and increased soil acidity are problems associated with degradation of soils and hence less sustainable agriculture. In this thesis, the effect of different agricultural systems on soil organic matter, pH and yield was examined. The systems examined are a cereal system with straw removal or returning and a ley system, all with different nitrogen levels.