Table 3.

Live animal performance of steers backgrounded on a cover crop mixture including brassicas (CC) or a common Midwestern backgrounding diet (CON) prior to transitioning to a common finishing diet^a

Variable	CCb	CONb	SEM	P-value
Backgrounding phasec
Initial weight, kg	314	316	6.608	0.840
ADGd, kg/d	0.33	0.41	0.063	0.397
DMIe, kg/d	6.47	6.48	0.330	0.982
G:Ff	0.051	0.062	0.009	0.423
BWg, kg	329	334	5.482	0.503
Finishing phasec
ADGd, kg/d	1.49	1.52	0.034	0.578
DMIe, kg/d	10.81	10.80	0.219	0.971
G:Ff	0.138	0.141	0.002	0.450
BWg, kg	607	618	9.148	0.433
Overall
ADGd, kg/d	1.27	1.30	0.028	0.367
DMIe, kg/d	9.51	9.14	0.188	0.175
G:Ff	0.134	0.143	0.003	0.022

^aLeast square means.

^bn = 15.

^cBackgrounding phase was 44 d; finishing phase was 187 d.

^dAverage daily gain.

^eDaily dry matter intake.

^fGain to feed ratio.

^gBody weight at the end of the feeding phase.