Transfer of Cs-137 from grass and wilted grass silage to milk of dairy cows.

Deposition of radiocaesium from the Chernobyl reactor accident on the Netherlands made it possible to collect contaminated fresh grass and first cut wilted grass silage. These contaminated roughages were used in transfer experiments with lactating dairy cows to determine transfer coefficients and half-lives for Cs-137 in milk. The experimental design was based on three consecutive periods: a preliminary period to determine the background concentration of the isotope in milk, a contamination period to determine the magnitude of accumulation and finally a depletion period to measure the rate at which the activity concentration of Cs-137 in milk declined after continuous feeding. The average transfer coefficient (Fmilk) for cows fed on contaminated dried grass under steady-state conditions was 0.002 d/kg and for cows fed on slightly contaminated second cut fresh grass 0.006 d/kg. The highest transfer coefficients were obtained for cows fed on contaminated grass silage for 119 days, which also included the dry period of about two months. For the first five days after calving the Fmilk values varied from 0.0066 to 0.0091 d/kg. There were no significant differences in transfer coefficients between cows in early lactation (third month of lactation), cows in late lactation (the last month of the lactation period) and cows fed on both contaminated grass silage and uncontaminated maize silage simultaneously. Half-life values for the rate of decline of the isotope in milk during the depletion period were estimated on the basis of a mathematical model with two exponential components. These components were characterized by half-lives of 0.5 to 3.5 days and 10 to 46 days.