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This proposal aims to establish productive feed protocols for silages and concentrates. The crops to be tested are forage and lupine and forage as peas and sorghum and / or switchgrass as spring caltivations, after harvesting of pea for silage. Different experiments will be developed for these crops at experimental and pilot level to meet the dairy cow’s nutritional needs. These protocols will take into account the current fertile conditions and the various fertilization and irrigation programs to be selected, in accordance with the principles of agricultural experimentation. In this proposal participate the Laboratory of Agricultural Economics and Consumer Behavior (AECOB), the Agricultural and Applied Plant Physiology Laboratory (AAPP) and the Laboratory of Entomology and Agricultural Zoology (EAZ) from the Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural Development of the University of Thessaly. The enterprises participating are the cooperative THESSGI and the cow farm of Mr. Triantafyllou Polykarpos. AAPP will shape the experimental design of the proposal. The THESSGI cooperative will implement the experimental design that will be designed by the AAPP following the cultivation guidelines that will be the production protocol of each crop. The quality characteristics of the feed produced will be assessed by the AAPP. The efficiency of the inputs used per crop will be assessed by AECOB by the application of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as an appropriate benchmarking methodology. The EAZ will design protocols to deal with crop pests to be studied at a pre-harvest and post-harvest level. Mixtures of these feeds will then be provided to the cow farm for feeding a number of animals. AECOB will also conduct a consumer behavior survey for feeding purchase by animal feeders at national level. All agricultural experiments will last 36 months and feeding experiments will last 24 months. The result of this combined research effort will be the establishment of production protocols for crops capable of improving the dairy process, by making best use of the inputs used during their production process. This will reduce as far as possible the production cost, increasing the competitiveness of the farms of the cooperative. The cow farm will acquire an integrated nutritional protocol with locally produced species, thereby reducing production costs in a sector characterized by a particularly strong competitive milk production environment. In addition, it will be able to differentiate the final product in a way by setting a sound basis for the implementation of a marketing mix based on the locality of the overall production process. The project seeks to provide viable solutions to serious problems encountered by plant and livestock farms by creating conditions to meet national targets for reducing the dependence of animal production on imported soybeans and increasing the competitiveness of the cow’s milk sector. The results will be published in valid scientific journals, will be presented at scientific conferences and a website will be created where the project will be presented.

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