Utilising temperate and tropical pastures and compensatory growth during winter to maximise growth in cattle

The effect of combinations of temperate and tropical pastures, and of interactions with compensatory growth, on liveweight gain in steers was investigated over the winter-spring period in the subtropics. Sixteen Brahman crossbred steers (294 +/- 4.4 kg; +/- s.e.) were either not supplemented (low growth rate; L) or supplemented with silage and with a mixed sorghum-barley grain-based ration (2 kg/hd/d) (high growth rate; H) in autumn. Growth rates over ca. 100 d (hereafter autumn) for L and H groups were -0.21 and 0.71 kg/d, and liveweights at the end of autumn were 270 +/- 5.4 and 365 +/- 8.2 kg, respectively. Steers were re-allocated within original groups so that half grazed ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) cv. Aristocrat alone (LR, HR) and half grazed ryegrass (3 d/week) and carryover pangola grass (Digitaria eriantha) (4 d/week) (LRP, HRP). Liveweight gains over the next 88 d (winter-spring) were 1.17 +/- 0.056, 1.05 +/- 0.055, 0.86 +/- 0.057 and 0.67 +/- 0.037 kg/d, and final liveweights were 373, 362, 441 and 423 kg for LR, LRP, HR and HRP, respectively. Growth rates over winter-spring were higher (