Using NIR spectroscopy to determine cow diet and geographical origin from milk samples
Résumé
An experiment was done to evaluate the ability of NIR spectroscopy to discriminate among tanker milk samples according to cow diet and geographical origin in relation to production systems. Milk from cows fed maize silage (121 samples) vs. pasture (245 samples) and of lowland (151 samples) vs. upland (180 samples) origin were used. Near-infrared reflectance spectra of oven-dried milk samples were recorded. PLS-DA multivariate analysis correctly classified 93% of the pasture vs. maize silage fed cow milk but only 81% of the samples by geographical origin. NIR spectroscopy can thus classify milk samples by cow diet, but not reliably by origin.