Analysis of milk production indicators in terms of seasonality in the Vologda region

The article presents the results of studying the quality of raw milk in different seasons of the year for the period from 2021 to 2023 in one of the leading agricultural enterprises of the Vologda Region. The study was conducted using milk samples from 25,617 cows. Samples were taken in accordance with the monthly schedule of control milking. The analysis of milk samples was carried out on the Ecomilk Total KAM 98-2A express milk analyzer. The research results were systematized and processed by means of Microsoft Excel program using generally accepted methods of variation statistics. It was found that Holstein cows have slight fluctuations in milk yield depending on the year season; the largest amounts of milk were received in the autumn season in 2021 and 2023, and in the summer season in 2022. There is also a positive dynamics in increasing the amount of milk in the controlled population, the increase range was 24.3%-43.6%. The highest yield was obtained in 2023 in the autumn period and amounted 43.5 kg per day. When assessing the fluctuations in quality indicators (mass fraction of fat and mass fraction of protein), no significant differences were found across the seasons of these years. The complex indicator of milk fat and milk protein indicates sufficiently high indicators of the Holstein breed of 1.7 kg and 1.36 kg, respectively. Thus, it is advisable to study the dynamics of milk productivity by seasons in order to increase selection reserves.